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[ID: excerpt from ‘The Complete Works: The Diary,’ Virginia Woolf 

“I don’t think I have said enough about the splintered disorder of June, July & August.”]

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...love, which happens only once in life, and thereafter is never quite spontaneous or impulsive.

André Aciman, Enigma Variations

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There's a life that takes place in ordinary time, and another that bursts in but just as suddenly fizzes out. And then there's the life we may never reach but that could so easily be ours if only we knew how to find it. It doesn't necessarily happen on our planet, but is just as real as the one we live by - call it our 'star life'.

André Aciman, Enigma Variations

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Helpful Books To Learn Languages

French

50 Ways To Improve Your French

Barron’s French Idioms

Learn French: The Fast And Fun Way (This book has tons of great worksheets and everything. It’s great for learning French!)

2,001 Most Useful French Words

Say It Right in French: The Easy Way to Pronounce Correctly 

Streetwise French

Berlitz Hide This French Phrase Book

Italian

50 Ways To Improve Your Italian

Berlitz Self-Teacher Italian (Personally, I don’t really care for these types of books, mainly because I don’t the things you learn in the first few chapters. Unless you have a base in the language, I don’t think this book will work for you.)

Learn Italian: The Fast And Fun Way (This book has tons of great worksheets and everything. It’s great for learning Italian!)

Barron’s Italian Idioms 

Easy Italian Phrase Book: 770 Basic Phrases for Everyday Use 

Correct Your Italian Blunders

Spanish

50 Ways To Improve Your Spanish

Correct Your Spanish Blunders 

Just Enough Spanish

Dirty Spanish - Warning: This is really vulgar.

Barron’s Complete Spanish Grammar Review 

Making Out in Spanish (I think this title is great. I’ve never read this book, but if you’re looking for slang/everyday Spanish, this seems like a pretty good book.)

Ven Conmigo! Grammar and Vocabulary Workbook: Level 1 (This is the actual workbook I use in my Spanish 1 class. It is great and I love it. If you want to teach yourself Spanish, I highly recommend getting a workbook like this.)

Hide This Spanish Book (This has a lot for a small book. Mainly just some basic phrases, along with some that are more vulgar.)

Hide This Spanish Book for Lovers (The title speaks for itself…)  

Mierda! The Real Spanish You Were Never Taught In School

Say It Right In Spanish

German

50 Ways To Improve Your German

Dirty German - Warning: This is really vulgar.

Say It Right In German: The Easy Way to Pronounce Correctly

Easy Way to Enlarge Your German Vocabulary

Barron’s German Idioms

The Tell-Tale Heart - If you want to read in German, this seems like a pretty good book to get. 

German-English Visual Dictionary

Scheisse!: The Real German You Were Never Taught In School - I love all these books. They have them in every language (The title means “Shit”). Although it doesn’t have the pronunciations, its still pretty great for the vocabulary it has. It’s a bit vulgar though, but not too bad.

Portuguese 

Just Enough Portuguese: How to Get by and Be Easily Understood

Portuguese Verb and Essentials of Grammar

Berlitz Portuguese Phrase Books & Dictionary

51 Portuguese Idioms - Speak Like a Brazilian 

Arabic

Arabic-English Visual Dictionary

The Arabic Alphabet: How to Read and Write It

First 100 Words In Arabic

Learn Arabic: The Fast and Fun Way

Making Out In Arabic  

Instant Arabic!

Japanese

Berlitz Concise Dictionary

Essential Kanji: 2,000 Basic Japanese Characters

Colloquial Kansai Japanese: The Dialects and Culture of the Kansai Region

Speak Japanese Today 

Making Out In Japanese - I just bought this book, and it seems pretty great. 

More Making Out In Japanese 

Korean

Say It Right In Korean 

Korean Made Easy

Instant Korean

First 100 Words In Korean

Making Out In Korean

More Making Out In Korean

Korean For Travelers - I think this might only be a Nook book, which kind of sucks.

Dirty Korean -  Warning: This is really vulgar.  

Basic Korean: Workbook

Intermediate Korean: Workbook - I’m not sure if this is worth getting because of the price, but it seems like a helpful book

Korean At A Glance

Teach Me Everyday Korean

Chinese

Making Out In Chinese (I think this title is great. I’ve never read this book, but if you’re looking for slang/everyday Chinese, this seems like a pretty good book.)

Mandarin Chinese - English Visual Dictionary

Survival Chinese 

Get Talking Chinese - This book is so great. It’s kind of like a children’s book, but for learning basic Chinese, it’s great.

Hide This Mandarin Chinese Phrase Book 

Instant Chinese!

Polish

Say It In Polish 

Berlitz Polish Concise Dictionary

Berlitz Polish Phrasebook and Dictionary

Polish: An Essential Grammar

Russian

Learn Russian: The Fast and Fun Way

Say It Right In Russian

Russian Vocabulary

Dermo!: The Real Russian Tolstoy Never Used

Russian At A Glance

Just Enough Russian

General Language Books

Barron’s 501 Verbs (comes in French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Latin, Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, English and German)

Note: I love Berlitz and Barron books for learning languages. Most are just reference books for verbs, grammar, or basic phrases instead of textbooks. But once you have a base in the language, they help you improve so much. I highly recommend buying any Berlitz or Barron language books. I love the 50 Ways To Improve Your books. They are the best grammar/vocab/correction language books ever. I use the Spanish one to help teach myself Spanish, and I absolutely love it. And it isn’t very expensive either!

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So just to provide a comprehensive overview of my original content regarding languages in Africa, albeit much of it is languages in Northeast Africa, I decided to make this easily more accessible by putting links to all of such in one place for those interested. Mind you, this is only posts with visuals. So, here you go:

Visual Swadesh lists (43 posts)

Linguistic Diversity Challenge week 1 (7 posts)

Lingusitic Diversity Challenge: ’Bëlï

Linguistic Diversity Challenge: Defaka

Linguistic Diversity Challenge: Sandawe

An Overview of: Oromoid

An Overview of: Surmic

An Overview of: Cushitic

An Overview of: Nilotic (may be updated)

Introductions: Eastern Omo-Tana (9 posts)

Introductions: Central Cushitic (5 post)

Introductions: Saho

Introductions: Sidamo

Introductions: Wolane

Introductions: Gumär

Introductions: Mäsk’an

Introductions: Dahalik

Introductions: Tigrinya

Introductions: Soqotri (read this excerpt)

Introductions: Mehri

Introductions: Bat’hari

Introductions: Harsusi

Introductions: Hobyot

Zigula: Retroflex Consonants

‘Laugh’ in Afrosemitic

‘Milk’ in South Arabian

‘Breast’ in South Arabian

‘Louse’ in Eastern Omo-Tana, South Afrosemitic, & South Arabian

‘Man, person’ in Eastern Transversal South & Outer South Afrosemitic

‘to possess’ in North Afrosemitic, Bilin, & Afro-Sabaic

‘Fingernail, claw’ and/or ‘palm of hand’ in Semitic

‘Fire’ in various Semitic languages

‘One’ in various Semitic languages

‘One’ in various Amazigh languages (plus ‘water’ in the C-group language)

‘hand’ in various lowland languages in Northeast Africa

‘one’ in Coptic, Middle Egyptian, and ‘water’ Meroitic

An excerpt on the etymology of Egyptian *nwb

The Afrosemitic languages (map & breakdown)

Reflexes of Proto-Omo-Tana *ɗ

There’ll be more, of course. So this will be periodically updated.

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current mind-space//word vomit

it’s amazing how much can change in a few days, but it hasn’t been a week since my finals ended and i already felt so different. i have been doing f45 everyday this week (if not then some kind of workout, but i’ve really been into that recently). i am feeling so much better now without deadlines, sometimes i don’t know if i function better under pressure or not. i guess not, but then it��s amazing how much i can do and achieve under pressure. i need the right amount of pressure, and this semester it has been a little difficult for me to get around that. 

last friday was kinda my last day of finals, i just had an essay to submit, and i am disappointed in myself and my work ethic because i submitted it at 9pm, went to my cousin’s (disappointing) party, and then professor emailed me to say that she cannot read Pages format (seriously smh @ my tardiness!!!), only got back at 1am that night and sent my mediocre essay. i am a little sad about it because i know that is not my 100%. idk why but college so far has just been a series of 80% effort. this paper was an interesting one, on airbnb, on the sharing economy, it’s a performance studies paper where i analyze the hospitality platform in terms of host-user relationship, parasitism and (attempted) to talk about free online labor. it is a little too late now but i kinda want to work on it again and like, submit for feedback. maybe ill ask taylor. 

last saturday was kinda meh, i agreed to go to a *social* kinda event at a bar/club at chelsea, held for Asian-ivy-alumni-people that yanlin invited me too. it was at up&up and honestly a little...i didn’t enjoy it at all. the music sucked, the people were either too dorky or gross or old or weird, and the whole time i just kept saying to myself, “never again”. they said it was open bar but they only served absolut, which was shit. and then my friend’s two friends were...i feel sorry that this was their first clubbing experience. at the beginning my reaction was look at all these ivy alumni! get hitched with one of them for ~da connectsx~ (and nothing else) but no kidding i was actually interested in talking to them just to get to know what people who graduated from ivies are up to, and what are they doing at such events...and are they actually enjoying themselves because it was really kinda gross. met my friend’s friend who seemed like a really smart engineer (he asked for my number the next day lol), and a german dude at the bar who didn’t want to get me a drink. all i needed that night was a drink.....(i’m glad i didn’t drink tho because recently drinking has made me feel all kinds of bad)  we had ramen after at ramen-ya (most probably the worst ramen and charsiew i’ve had but what can we do at 3am and my friend wanted noodle and soup...)

on sunday i KNow i should have left my house earlier to workout but i didn’t. i was angry at myself that i didn’t. instead, i stayed at home and emotion-ate. i must have eaten more green bean soup than my stomach would have liked. what else...avocado? i remember..two bananas? god. this was the day i felt like i was n’s boyfriend because i had to do what she wanted to do. i know i had agreed on going, but at that point i really wanted to go thrifting or something. i mean when i got to central park it was fine and things were good but the whole day just felt like i was kinda pulled into doing something that wasn’t my first choice of plans, not that i didn’t enjoy myself lying under the sun at the park. it just felt like i was accompanying someone. i was half an hour late to meet her as well, and half heartedly got a burrito-wrap at newsbar. if you think about it it is really kinda funny, we’re just buying food and taking the subway to this grass patch 50 blocks away. we didn’t walk much, we literally only stayed at a little grassy slope overlooking the baseball pitch. anyway we went to a dance class after (the class was an hour long but i felt like n had asked me about when and what time we should book the classes for more than an hour by text so i just got really sick of it) i rushed home and got dinner with my uncle who’s in town for my cousin’s graduation. i was surprised that he chose the same japanese restaurant again, after dissing it half a year ago we ate here. the omakase was crazy and it cost 230 per person. (for the most expensive set) it was also kinda dumb because you aren’t allowed to order a different omakase set from anyone else - everyone on the table has to order the same - because of “timing”. i wonder if this is how it is in japanese omakase etiquette, but in any case it really earned them a hefty amount because my uncle decided to get 230 for all of us. qiyang didn’t like and said qiqi had bad taste, hahaha. the food wasn’t bad, i mean it’s japanese fusion, but the prices were way too steep for the taste. anyway enough about the food, during the dinner i think we talked about many things though. i kinda wanted to talk to my uncle individually because i think he is the only one who knows about ah gong, but he was sick, and i could tell he was exhausted. my aunt got a little impatient because i didn’t arrange plans to take their furniture and they were going to throw all of them away and it was actually the first time i’ve seen her get so worked up - but at the same time trying to control her emotions - because she was talking to me. i could tell she was annoyed though but i tried not to take it personally, and arranged it tomorrow. 

arranging the moving stuff was kinda last minute, i was walking to the library for work one day and i saw a truck that said MakeSpace. i assumed it was a kind of moving company and so i looked them up. they seemed to be pretty okay in terms of their services and so i decided to try them out. confirmation and setting up an appointment went pretty smoothly, except for the part where the guy i think his name was joseph, asked me to give my credit card details over the phone. idk why i did that! i stopped though, and asked him why, to which he replied he wanted to key in with the coupon code. this service has so much gimmicks within the first 2-3 minutes on the phone he was already telling me about how the first pick up is free, and that he will deduct 100$ off the first month...when people give you discounts too easily it just feels like a ploy and a thing they give to everyone, it’s not anything special and it’s probably calculated inside whatever we have to pay. anyway, i was just thinking it would be cheaper (assuming the maximum that i would have to pay is ~$500, as i confirmed with them on the phone yesterday), it’d still be cheaper than starting an apartment lease now and going through the trouble of finding two subletters. 

well. idk, it’s also easy to have things all moved in, i have to find a place to store my perishables!

moving is so much work, and storing things. this reminds me of my paper on airbnb and about the digital nomad lifestyle. it is interesting though, that this is what it has become. but the homogenized aesthetic is something i really cannot stand, in airbnb, in coffeeshops around the world..i am sure you know what i’m talking about. a new york times writer did something about this - he termed it “Airspace” - and apparently it originated from Brooklyn. I guess that’s where the art/avant-garde stuff started. well. keep a look out im gonna write a blogpost about that 

moving on 

nat came to sleepover on sunday night and a few days after because the school kicks you out of the dorms you pay so much for right after your final ends. i forgot if we did something fun but i probably just fell asleep. 

on monday i think i went to f45 and did cardio at Dumbo with Gi. he seems like a pretty nice trainer, the first time i went it was him and another girl Bertha (i think my first f45 was last tuesday) and i felt like i had two personal trainers with me - Gi was cheering me on and Bertha was doing it with me. it felt like such a good workout, one of the best ive had in a while. then work, where i arranged the movers stuff. i also realized i bought the wrong date for my flight ticket as my friends and had to buy one more...............

tuesday was the same f45 in the morning, and the bobst after. didn’t really get much work done at bobst. oh i also viewed a 3BR flex at 160. hella expensive and small, and dates didn’t work out anyway. also the broker who brought us to view the apartment was a very nice tall french man and his name was jean-francois which i couldn’t pronounce and asked nat but still called him jean as in jeen instead of john. this is why i have to learn french. you’re embarrassing. i also went to the itp/ima spring show with shubham which was super cool. there were many cool ideas, and i just wonder if i could create something like that. i didn’t get to see all of the exhibits which i regret, but i remember a few notable projects. one was an installation made with keyboards that randomly clicks, but when you hold your phone up it’ll stop. it’s made using 3d gestures. there’s also one at a gallery for surveillance, this team had a thing they call facebox, and it’s literally a box, that when you open it has a webcam that would capture your face, find you on facebook, and print out an invoice/receipt on how much you have earned for this giant tech company.  what else...an AR project that when you scan a food,  it shows you where the food comes from. nat said that she would love it if menus have something they could scan and then have pictures appear in ~holographic~ format, or maybe in the nearer future something on your phone that shows you a picture of the picture of the food. but isn’t it a surprise tho? sometimes the fun’s in the surprise, you read the description, you know what are the foods you’ll eat, leaving room to imagine or be surprised by how the chef puts it together! anyway, went for dinner with nat and jenny - got vegan shwarma (definitely wasn’t worth $14) and went to get crepes with will after. 

wednesday we were gonna go to the dmv but we weren’t prepared. nat also needed to get her passport and she was lazy. wow the number of times i mentioned her, it feels like she’s my boyfriend at this point. talked to famz, sister, and beatrix. am currently considering if i should even go to beijing or just go straight home. fuck. went to bobst for work but no one was there i was just really sleepy. viewed an apartment at 55 morton (it’s a nice quiet residential street that seems to be tucked away from the loud cars and bars and people) then i went to f45 again-varsity!!! cardio!!!, walked across brooklyn bridge (a little regret although i wanted to walk, but my bag was heavy and there were too many tourists to brisk walk) 

also the reason for this is that after my soba/miso/salad/shrimp dinner last night i was just watching a bunch of netflix shows and it was probably the caffeine from puerto rican roasting company - the barista made me a chai cappuccino with almond milk (3 SHOTS!!!)

me and nat couldn’t sleep, i really think i slept for an hour. i watched so many different shows, yoko and john’s documentary, while we were young, anthony bourdain, i was seriously flipping through all the shows and alternating between amazonprme and youtube and netflix and i even tried watching peaceful cuisine and making the brightness lower and had the sleep mode on and wow i just couldn’t sleep

so yeah the birth of this word vomit 

i am going to create more things

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saw this post on instagram and i truly relate 

“today’s weather was the kind that makes you forgive and forget how much this city demands of you” -@iamclur

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a saturday i felt everything was too much

27th april, 2019 

i: 

- woke up in the morning feeling anxious about my project i have a day for

- i am even anxious that i am typing about it but i’m going to do a quickie 

- contemplated going to brooklyn’s YTTP and do hot yoga there but i was LAZY i didn’t go and lijun called me and told me about some things i found weird about (and also about her going back to chung cheng) 

- she hung up abruptly and i started to stress-eat food   (some leftover digestives, cheese, banana, i think two oranges) 

- changed, squeezed into my jeans, and left to meet eshaa and pira! met eshaa on the L train station we happened to get on the same carriage which was such a coincedenz

- pira overslept, spent a windy lunch time at smorgasburg 

- food was okay (many choices actually for a food fair somehow it remind sme of my high school friends and how much they’ll like it if i brought them there) but i felt like mentally i wasn’t in the right state to enjoy it - was it because i was too full 

- on the L train on the way to bedford ave (read: L train - avoid when you can!! especially on weekends) as i was looking at eshaa i just felt like i was in a separate state, like i’m living another reality. you know those shows that have th protagonist living a simulation? i felt like that, like i’m not truly present there and my mind and body are kinda separate and i have to act a certain way in public to “keep up” with what i have to do 

- ordered a raclette burger because i always wanted to try the cheese + the patty looked good to me - half regretted because i was fucking full 

- i wanted ice cream but i didn’t want those folded kinds from 10below and i was kinda bored of walking around the place multiple times so we just got churros and left 

- went to mcnally jackson (am thinking about this book i wanna read right now -how to date men when you hate men) (lol i am sure this tells you a lot of my current headspace), some stores, walked around a lil bit 

- i felt bad for 1. not giving eshaa anything - i have a new orleans shot glass to give to her!! its k next time 2. asking her to try my beef burger f can i be more culturally sensitive 

- alighted at union sq, grabbed some van leeuwen’s at whole foods to bring to clara and my cousin’s party because i love that shit 

- tbh really didn’t feel and in my whole mind i wanted to cancel the meeting at 4 - i didn’t though because i didn’t want to be that person + i thought it might be good for me 

- i was nervous and bought the most horrible tasting gluten free cookie from news bar on the way home - i have no self control (it was $4) it was also coconut avocado i am going to start baking my own stuff now. 

- (channeling what greyson chance said) you gotta be patient with yourself 

- oprah: the best thing you can give yourself is time 

- me: *impulse eats and buys when i am nervous* 

- anyway, finally got my ass home, really nice weather while walking through the park, changed to my leggings bc f me 

- wanted to wear my blazer, luckily i didn’t because he wore a blazer too, he be lookin dapper 

- a little too dapper to go record shopping in the village & for what we about to do, but you know it was okay i appreciate the effort 

- at the beginning, you know, a lil awkward, a lil extended glances on the face and eye contact 

- we went to the record store i’ve always walked past but never entered on bleecker...and saw seth rogen! 

- tbh was a lil out of my element but it’s okay i am learning to get into the element you needa start somewhere ya kno

- interesting guys working at the record store 

- i wanted to buy something but i didn’t because i didn’t have a turntable and i am broke 

- we got coffee and walked to the park 

- i got an iced coffee but i shoulda gotten an espresso like he did because, too much liquid yo 

- speaking about liquids i feel like i need to go on a detox juice cleanse 

- walked to the park and sat by the jazz area

- chatted a lil. programming buddies?

- 6pm, i needed to get wine, we went together and even picked up some stuff from morton williams. it all felt very adult-like, picking up wine and groceries, kinda lol to be doing this on an apparent date but ok, cool cool 

- went back home and got changed, saw nicole called out to her, she was napping and closed the door

- got my ass out of the apartment, cousin told me about clara’s unfortunate wallet-and-passport-losing situation, went to uncle ted’s and talked a lil 

- thought his party was gonna be chill and i could do work but fuck 

- it’s okay though i got a lot out of it i met cool and interesting people 

- drank enough for the party to have fun 

- everyone seems really cool - amber, khoo, weijie was lol, talked to erica (yay cs!) clara, annoying guy, xia, it was fun last night 

- i am thankful for my cousin for throwing parties tho i feel like i wanna throw a grad party for him, kinda like a send off. it’ll be thatschic’s level of party 

- went home, tried to confide in chloe, urges was so strong i walked down to mamoun’s

- didn’t get anything bc broke ass bitch, i went back home, cooked all my soba noodles and opened my mala sauce pack, made a lot of noise and heartburn 

- (writing this on sunday morning) regrets

- the first few broccoli was good tho, with the sauce 

- i died after because it was too spicy 

- i am talking too much about food 

- when will was sharing with me about his relationship with food i enjoy it actually

- he talked about making crepes!

- 

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when you don’t want to write

or when you don’t want to face ur feelings, maybe you write about something very simple. 

today you woke up. thought about getting coffee although you really don’t need it. you don’t have the body nor the money to spend on the nice cuppa you really like. rushed to bobst but you didn’t know you could enter your office with the nice mac desktop before 10am so you sat outside with the clunky (windows) keyboard and tried to work for an hour. 

i think you worked for 3 hours straight but you didn’t realize because time passes so quickly. you saw wendy hui kyung chun’s speech and wonder how someone could speak so eloquently and so tightly PS for 1.5 hours. you also realized how broad ~*performance studies & technology*~ is and you want to talk about everything in class and you should have just decided at the beginning to make it succinct because it would have been a much much better presentation. i know you spent a long time on it but man, your delivery was regrettable and disgraceful. 

today was about surveillance and privacy. one more week before the last day of class. i just remembered that we have to do our final paper. also, this is a little weird but i want to go to a drag thing with nate and talk to peter. just because i find the way he talks mesmerizing. i can write an essay about how i feel about talking in that class. 

i wonder how i sound like to other people. i notice the way people speak a lot, and speaking like this so that people could understand and “respect” me is something that I (wouldn’t use the word ‘work’ on) but it is something i think about everyday, consciously or unconsciously. i couldn’t say /algorithmically/ just now. and i was reading from the slide. with the amount of preparation i did that shouldn’t have had happened. i could be better. it is messed up but i wonder if i would be better if i presented at home. would i be more confident. somehow i feel so different i feel that there is a barrier between the professor (taylor) and us, or these people so vastly different from us. people that i want to talk to but didn’t get the chance to. it also feels weird you know. to do more than just small talk. 

anyway. this was supposed to be simple. i needed to start coding. wow i realized that there are so much things inside me that i have been repressing. or is there no one to talk to about. well we gotta start somewhere

after that i had manousheh (zaatar and cheese) and a bunch of stuff. i told myself i wouldn’t eat nicole’s oreo truffle. fuck 

i also watched dating after college. the characters was 22 (because that’s the age after college)

i am 22 

am i where i see myself 

edit: it’s the next day and i’m just gonna post this 

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bad habits brooding

bad habits i can’t seem to kick. i don’t know why. i guess i should document this because next time when i die people know what i am going through. (or should i say, what i went through) to be honest, none of my friends and my family knows that i am going through this right now and honestly it is a little hard. 

i should write. i will write. how else will i express myself? 

its almost 1:30am and idk why i didn’t fall asleep. why didn’t i just tuck myself into bed, brushed my teeth and sleep?. comfortably? why did you have to finish your roommate’s shortbread cookies. you’re gonna have to buy one for her tomorrow so that it didn’t seem like you ate hers. 

you really shouldn’t have. you are already broke. 

you also don’t have that much time so to be honest, i really don’t know what the fuck you are wasting your time on. you have so much to do, so so much you are falling behind, just like you always are. also, you have to register for classes soon and i think you need to talk to kumar if you want to be a visiting student. i am sure applications take up some time as well. 

talk to him tomorrow. you plan to do yoga tomorrow. how are you going to do it when you are like this. to be honest you were fine just now. but then you ate a mango, a guava, 3 mandarines, one ice cream, a pack of indomie, oatmeal and matcha. and 8 shortbread cookies. that must have been 2000 calories i can’t even think about it. i feel at loss. is it because i am tired? i don’t want to sleep? i know i am eating to avoid thinking about something, and avoid the more serious question. 

i don’t know what to do, i feel like i need therapy and a food diary because these thoughts take up too much of my space and i can’t tell anyone because it’s dumb and none of my friends know anyway. i am not looking for a “i know, me too!!’ but i need a nutritionist like pick up limes. 

while i was looking for therapist in this related field, it surprised (well i wasn’t like 100% surprised) me that most of the people were white. i wanted somebody asian and i didn’t know how to do that. am i racist for wanting somebody of the same ethnicity? 

(I am still thinking about that shortbread, and how much i stopped myself from eating it. i know i didn’t even try that hard because i opened it and ate it anyway. so.) 

i could be my own therapist. i just need to ask myself what’s the issue that i am trying to run away from. to be honest, i think i know i just don’t want to verbalize it. 

i am lost, and i am scared. i look okay from the outside but i am not. i wore a leather jacket, converse high end sneakers and got my lashes done today. facades. i guess these are the things i can control and this is my way of sort of regaining control. 

at this point i am not sure about going to class tomorrow. no. i am going to class. i just feel a little...out of sorts. today was a good day. i don’t know why i am eating and every night is such a 

struggle 

i love being alone at home

i have books but why don’t i read 

i am tired but why don’t i sleep

i have so much on my to do list but why don’t i do it 

what am i waiting for 

why am i holding myself back 

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do you ever

do you ever just have

that one class

that one freaking class

that just depresses you when you think about it because

oh god you hate it so much

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today

today was fun. the week after spring break!! i had such a good break that this week feels a little heavy. feels a little tight. 

this morning i woke up super early because bronwen’s leaving nyc for minneapolis and we struggled to meet for breakfast. we woke up at a little over 7 and she spent 15 minutes looking for indian cuisine because she was reals craving some roti. i understand completely. sometimes i still think about the 手抓饼 (shou zhua bing) in beijing, that’s seriously one of my favorite foods in china. 

anyway we established that indian restaurants do not open that early - most open at noon (and there were like about 3 places within a 3 minute radius that could have satisfied bron’s craving - i love bleecker street!) so we ended up going to a chinese bakery! it’s nice because sometimes i think about having those buns for breakfast just like what we do at home, but you know classes and shit, who got the time to walk an extra 0.5 miles for those delicious bolo bao. 

we had char siew baos and pastries and ovaltine. i don’t usually have ovaltine i guess i grew up with milo but anything remotely close to milo is my best friend here. anyways, i love talking to bron (lol @ our serious ass morning conversation.) (nah it wasn’t srs) and it just feels so easy. it’s really nice to catch up with her and it’s really cool to see someone working so hard for music and theater and she says she is not good enough for nyc but i don’t think so i could seriously see her landing a few shows here. bron’s the person i think i have been to the most number of plays and shows here because she’s always asking me and one day i am certain i will be the one seeing her play or her directing you know. we also talked about a summer road trip and PLEASE. god, make that happen. 

i was still a little peckish after so i went to thompkins square bagels - there were too many choices i couldn’t decide plus i didn’t wanna eat a thicc bagel so i left to finish up my haiku presentation for class at think coffee. then, i had my cs lecture which i couldn’t really concentrate. i don’t know, i could write a separate post about joanna, a cs professor everyone else seems to love but i can’t seem to find that spark. we had to fill up course evals today and i wrote a paragraph while other people had ‘fav class’ and ‘fav professor at nyu’. i am not sure who to trust now. 

the lecture on registers and computer systems stuff and also talking about bagels made me hungry so i got some of those from bagel bob’s. i tried tofu scallion on a flat everything and i gotta say - what’s those tofu stuff? it just tastes like a softer version of cream cheese. 

got to japanese class. it’s chill but i feel like i definitely need to catch up because i am falling behind. beatrix also says that my pronunciation needs A LOT of work. i sound like a douche rn. we also had to read our haikus today and to be honest i am proud of my haikus. although 2/3 of those i had b to help me. well, i am proud of my presentation anyways, i did it on illustrator with fonts and little hiragana beside my kanji. 

(this blog post is turning out to be longer than expected, but i am enjoying myself.) after class, i went to news bar because that’s where my legs tend to take me. out of the soups lentil spinach seemed like the choice of the day for me but then i had the other half of my bagel and the cafe was too noisy to do work so i left for bobst. also, i checked my midterm score at newsbar and had no mood for everything else.

is this even interesting anymore? went to bobst, i like one of those high chairs on the 4th and 6th floor but i feel that because there are no windows it can get claustrophobic about 2-3 hours. also, ceilings are kinda low. it’s good if you are really concentrating because the background noise volume is kinda ideal for me but i guess i was feeling exhausted. left for home, got coffee with soy milk and tried rugelach (lil pastry) (wow gurl u ate a lot) for tea. treated myself. coulda treated myself to a nap. anyway i need some battle fuel. submitted regrade requests for my midterm which took me a while, and then maintenance guy came to fix some stuff in the bathroom - and spilled a whole lot of dirt on this apartment-management that i am leasing from. not as great as i thought they were, i knew it’s suspicious when they are so oddly kind. will elaborate in the future 

got to crossfit (a p good jog run from home) and spent 2 hours at the gym. a little much to be honest. i got to foam-roller my calves more. maybe it helps it from being too big. today i also pushed myself a lot i am feeling it! after not working out for a week. may also be because of my cycle. i was just more motivated today. i need to work out my arms more. gots sweetgreen after with nat and arugula took a long time to trvel down my oesophagus so i was kinda choked up. finished my salad though because leftovers aren’t really my kind of thing. now i’m here. oh i just remembered my clothes have been in the washer a while. time to take them out and start on my japanese homework, prepare a show and tell for tomorrow’s class, revise machine-level encoding for today’s lecture, write a museum write-up for design class, finish up design assignment.......print....readings for perf&tech...................

thinking about asking z (an alumni) because he has a connection to someone in vsco - is it too weird? vsco has been a dream no vsco is the dream for me i have been afraid to pursue it but now i am HERE

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RARE HISTORIC PHOTOS WE MIGHT HAVEN’T YET SEEN

An Exotic Dancer Demonstrates That Her Underwear Was Too Large To Have Exposed Herself, After Undercover Police Officers Arrested Her In Florida

Dorothy Counts – The First Black Girl To Attend An All-White School In The United States – Being Teased And Taunted By Her White Male Peers At Charlotte’s Harry Harding High School, 1957

Austrian Boy Receives New Shoes During WWII

Jewish Prisoners After Being Liberated From A Death Train, 1945

The Graves Of A Catholic Woman And Her Protestant Husband, Holland, 1888

A Lone Man Refusing To Do The Nazi Salute, 1936

Job Hunting In 1930’s

German Soldiers React To Footage Of Concentration Camps, 1945

Residents Of West Berlin Show Children To Their Grandparents Who Reside On The Eastern Side, 1961

Acrobats Balance On Top Of The Empire State Building, 1934

Mafia Boss Joe Masseria Lays Dead On A Brooklyn Restaurant Floor Holding The Ace Of Spades, 1931

Lesbian Couple At Le Monocle, Paris, 1932

The Most Beautiful Suicide – Evelyn Mchale Leapt To Her Death From The Empire State Building, 1947

The Remains Of The Astronaut Vladimir Komarov, A Man Who Fell From Space, 1967

Race Organizers Attempt To Stop Kathrine Switzer From Competing In The Boston Marathon. She Became The First Woman To Finish The Race, 1967

Harold Whittles Hearing Sound For The First Time, 1974

Nikola Tesla Sitting In His Laboratory With His “Magnifying Transmitter” more

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information overload

i have been thinking about creating content, blogging, documenting my stuff for the longest time ever. partly because i want to remember and document for myself, and partly because when i apply for jobs they need a portfolio. i want a portfolio, i want a personal project. why can’t i just start?

information fatigue finds its way to engulf me and i find the fruitlessness of it all. i feel exhausted reading and being exposed to so much content. i am not sure if people feel the same. maybe not, since there is always a demand of new content. and the demand is increasing as we speak. 

writing has been hard for me lately. so is listening to music. one side of my headphones had stopped working and it makes me want to pull my brains and eardrums out. even sitting down for hours at a time is difficult. not working out for a day makes me feel really bad. thinking about food and making decisions about when to eat or what to eat or if i should eat or if i should spend that amount of money on food makes me uncomfortable and honestly uses up too much of my brain cells. 

this coming week is a very packed one. it is 7 minutes to midnight, and then it’s going to be monday, and there is still so much to be done. the planner in me wants to plan everything next week, from my schedule to my meals to my workout times. the rational soul in me is screaming in my mind to finish my homework before i do anything else. the grammer nazi in my brain is whispering super loudly because i am not going to give this post a second read. the perfectionist in me wants to strangle herself because nothing is going “perfectly”

but nothing is going to be perfect. isn’t the quote “it doesn’t matter how slow you go as long as you do not stop” a quintessential classic tumblr (theme) favorite? well. you are in your own schedule. if you could do it before you could do it again. i know you are feeling perplexed you can no longer fit your jeans. i know you are feeling anxious about everything, about people coming, about people seeing you, about the thigh fat you feel every time you walk, or the new arm fat when you wear a tank top. (ps. went to brandy melville yesterday and i realized that I am loving their style this season. i feel like they have transitioned to basic bitch to basic vintage bitch and i am liking it. not the prices though, it still is overpriced. but also they started to carry clothing that is not just ‘one size’ and they have medium and large for some of their cargo pants, so good job, BM.)

sidenote: i am not really a fashion or i try not to shop a lot given my current circumstances but these are some clothing items that i have been wanting recently: white north face puff jacket, unif (look-alike) boots (easy to slip on and off), cargo pants, those pants i tried on at brandy melville but i really could lose 5kg and fit in it, hair curling iron (i think i am going to get one from amazon), dry shampoo? (should i spend $23?). ok i’ll stop here

this coming week is going to be exciting, i have a midterm, i am going to be doing a couple of coffee chats, meeting with MS students, meeting with Rosanna and I really hope that she would help me find maybe something at even the Museum of Moving image of SFMoma, i am going to Buddhism Club on Monday, probably going to apply for intramurals soon, meeting Justin to finally get my tMobile done on Thursday, going out on dates this weekend. its reals happening. things r happening.

i am scared. i am scared about my midterm and i can’t seem to be able to do a simple data structures question. i get stressed about all these stuff that’s taking up space on my laptop and how messy my folders are and how my icloud stuff are all over the place and it’s just really messy. 

i think i am going to stay up tonight. i have a lot to do. feeling some heartburn. please don’t do this to yourself anymore, your heart is crying. 

thoughts come and go, and you can always control your actions. there is nothing that a good book can’t solve. i know that sometimes it is difficult to concentrate. 

be grateful for what you have right now. you have the apartment to yourself, you have space. you have freedom. take up space, take up what’s yours. stop denying yourself of what should be yours. take it. if you want to talk to him, go talk to him. create opportunities for yourself. if you want to post something post it, and ignore what other people might think. or what you think of yourself, and that you should be consistent or whatever. eva chen is and was someone who posted a lot, she doesn’t care about how good it looks because she is real. you are going to be real. so spend less time thinking about how something looks and how you are portraying something and how you can write and express your thoughts better. 

that’s what a blog is for.

maybe, out of all the habits you want to embark on this month. just try blogging everyday. or journaling. or just writing a little something, because i know you have a lot on your mind and you’re just pushing it down and one day it’s going to burst because you can’t express yourself

do you remember the days when you used to blog everyday 

wow i look back at those days fondly, i want u back

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By: Theodora | ______theo

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