Countdown to Graduation: 3 days

View from old dorm room....I didn't even edit the colouring on this photo. The skies in California are naturally this blue. I won't go into the technical explanation as to why this is (and I learnt about it for an entire semester)...keep some magic alive in this world. Oh wait, I'm sounding like those people who advocate Creationism and ban Evolution from the school curriculum....
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ARGH. Only three days left until I'm booted out of campus! No more roaming the libraries in the morning/afternoon/night (or to sum it up; anytime); no more running to class thinking I'm late; no more half-assing assignments and being splendidly surprised when I'm not placed on academic probation; no more sitting in Commons wondering what the meaning of life is. Now I'll have to wonder what is the meaning of....taxes. Or the meaning of work in a cubicle. Such depressing thoughts. Granted, I've postponed my doom for another year (shimmying off to graduate school), but the inevitable will happen someday. I don't know if I can continue living life if I'm always thinking of such gloomy thoughts everyday. [Someone give me lithium! Just joking]
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Phone interview with graduate school admin went horribly this morning. Not only did I unintentionally make a snide comment (I didn't know how it sounded until it came out! I swear!), I also came across as a rambling fool. I was trying to say too much in too short a period of time because I prepped my answers in advance. Alas, when will I ever learn....ah well, got admitted to two schools, need to hear back from four more....
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Got rid of a stash of my manga today. I didn't throw it in the trash, I donated it to the people [mainly otakus] in my dorm. I didn't want to sell it to other people online, because i)I've read them and ii)even with postage, I can't see how it'll break-even or be cheaper than buying it directly from Kinokuniya. Frankly put, I'm surprised any of them wanted the manga since they're mostly BL- er, of a different genre. But the doujinshi I'm keeping for myself. My mother would have a heart-attack if she ever saw what they were about (key operative here: if). Also sold my television, so it's no Law and Order: SVU for me tonight. I must confess that I find Christopher Meloni to be incredibly awesome. I didn't watch Oz (too poor for HBO), but after seeing screen-captures and reading summaries; he definitely earns brownie points from me. Each time I see him and Hargitay on teevee I'm just cheering "Benson and Stabler!!!" (Yeah, the original Law and Order and Law and Order: CI just doesn't interest me as much).
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Parents arriving to L.A. tomorrow, and I know I need to get myself geared to express an entire range of emotions (and here I thought I was a semi-sociopath...guess only at specific moments). Happy to see my parents; sad to be leaving my friends; annoyed at my mother when she criticizes my apartment; grumpy at my dad for getting us lost on the freeway, then sympathetic to him after mother starts nagging at him; proud when I'm walking across the stage to receive my pseudo-diploma; fearful that my professor would rip my honours sash off and yell that I wrote 40 pages of bull; embarrassed when people offer congratulations; worried about my future; lonely after I see my friends for the last time on campus this Friday.

At least I know I spent my time well with my friends in L.A., so I won't be leaving the city with too many regrets.

However, my biggest regret would be not whooping my roommate's posterior today. She lied through her ass and told everyone she was graduating....walking the ceremony does not equal graduation! And she's staying in the dorm for another 3 days (same as me), because apparently she can't wake up early enough to move out on the actual day she was supposed to...bah. At least I'm 60% packed.

Countdown to Graduation: 7 days

Just let me wax poetic for a moment. I dug these images up from my freshman stash of photos; all taken from within Parkside (both were taken inside my room, but I was standing at different heights). Freshman year was such a trial; got very depressed... was bitter, resentful, angry...the works. (I shamefully admit that I acted like a spoiled kid back then. My parents deserve some sort of prize for dealing with me over the phone).

L.A. is experiencing some sort of cold front right now, meaning that the skies are gray, and the atmosphere is very depressing. To be honest I like this weather, but it doesn't make for a nice back-drop when it comes to taking photos on graduation day.

I know my parents will insist on taking photos all around campus like tourists....to which I'll have to suck it up and bear with it. I doubt they'll get another opportunity like this; since I don't have any younger siblings and my elder sister managed to miss her graduation by accident (she might try to convince me otherwise; but I found out the truth...from our mother. I love it when siblings try to conceal their shame, only to have them exposed by their parents. This is why I never tell my parents anything).

Eurgh, I hate my graduation gown. I feel like some old-school London streaker/flasher when I'm wearing it over my dress.
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I got an email from one of my library supervisors today wishing me the best of luck. Made me feel much better about leaving everyone I've met over in California in less than two weeks. I just wish I won't become too attached to H.K. afterwards and lack the will to travel across the Pacific Ocean to visit everyone in a few years time (I need to get my ID card renewed in 2014). I've spent my entire childhood traveling from country to country, but I've never thought twice about leaving people behind. Why is this so much more difficult with age?

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Zut. One of my roommates (I know which one; there are four girls, myself included. One doesn't shower so never has the need for a towel; the other is never home. That just leaves one girl left...) stole my towel from the toilet. I don't know what happened to it, but I'm sure it isn't good. My towel has been missing all afternoon, and I've searched my entire closet and laundry hamper but to no avail. I don't want to go through my roommate's stuff so I don't know for sure if they have it or not.

Had to dry myself with a bloody piece of cloth half the size of a standard pillowcase...damn. Not my proudest moment as an undergraduate. Other moments I'm not proud of include:

-telling my mother about my suicidal thoughts only to have her dismissed them, and have her tell me that the remedy to my depression was to "think happy thoughts"
-encounter my 'aunt' (H.K. people would know what this means), and having to improvise with paper towels
-taking toilet paper from the school because our apartment ran out, and we're too cheap to buy a new bunch
-running down the hall to use someone else's toilet at night, because one suite-mate took a mega-dump and clogged BOTH toilets
-getting drunk, singing songs from movies in the 1940s and hugging random passerbys
-crying in class
-crying in the toilet cubicle inside a school building...

...more to come someday. Right now I've damned myself enough.

Love, Hate...what?

I love and hate California all the same. On one hand, the open space is appealing, and the relatively mild weathers make it much easier to buy clothing. On the other, high-crime; raising estate prices (I don't care what you say, estate agent commercial, now is NOT a good time to buy a house! Unless you're super rich); high taxes for the non-wealthy; a new generation of good-for-nothing egocentric kids that grew up privileged and does not know the value of hard work. I cannot bear to live facing these things everyday.

Doesn't help that so many of my friends are staying in L.A. after graduation...or that I also got into a local graduate school in the area. I'm so torn on where to go or what to do.
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Damn, I hate it when people pressure you into drinking alcohol. One or two requests is fine, but if a person keeps insisting after the second rejection, it just makes the entire outing lame and awkward. I don't drinking alcohol because I can't drink alcohol. It's Newton's Law in reverse: what goes down must come up. (I believe Calvin and Hobbes also said the same thing...). A few years back I thought I was just overreacting to alcohol (i.e.; it's all in my head), but apparently it's not; a couple of my relatives react poorly to alcohol so I'm assuming its something genetic. But no matter about that, I'll probably have to put up with this sort of social drinking pressure for the rest of my life.

And no one should ever, ever make physical contact with me beyond that of a hand shake. I could be over reacting at times about this, but I have my reasons and whilst I may not indulge them to anyone, I think it's still polite to maintain physical distance if I ask for it. Jeez, no one would ever attempt to make physical contact with me in Hong Kong...people in the U.S. has this weird super-informal way of greeting each other with hugs and kisses that took me several years to get used to...