migblog

i had one of the most inspiring times yesterday when we decided to just rent a car and wing the whole day, when we ended up spending the day near and around point reyes, where everything was just a touch greener and the sea smelled a little saltier and the sun was shining a little brighter. i didn't expect to go to tomales bay and go on a nature trail; i didn't expect to go to point reyes, let alone the lighthouse. it was exciting -- i had never been surrounded by green fields, and across the horizon, past the hazardous cliffs, was ocean; a marvelous, blue-green expanse dotted by specks of foam and waves, a playground for common murres and whales and who knows what else was right below us at the time.

it was so gorgeous.

i forgot yesterday was a friday, too: partly the reason why we got to go everywhere was the lack of traffic, until 5.30 rolled around and we were still near san rafael and san anselmo, literally blocks away from dominican university at one point when we were navigating through the north bay.

soon enough we made our way back to richmond and to berkeley, pausing a bit to collect ourselves (we did just go to point reyes lighthouse, which had approximately 320 steps leading to the lighthouse cliff itself, and yes, i climbed them up and down). the night was a little quiet; a little more subdued, but all in all a good day when it came down to it.

i had a tough time trying to figure out why, then, i felt so miserable.

it was all fun, it fit the whole "feast for the eyes" bill, and yes, it even stirred me a little when the waves lapping up on indian beach reminded me of oysters. but through the while, i felt like i was someone else, something else, a little discombobulated and stilted at this point in our day-long venture.

and even more stilted is what it became, it felt a little more rehearsed and a little more alienated, because somewhere along the way i didn't feel like myself anymore, and actually had to roll down the windows to get me a breath of fresh air to bring me back to myself again.

have you ever had the feeling of losing yourself, quite literally, to everything else around you? it sounds like a great experience, but when it happened to me, it was almost one of the most frustratingly traumatic experiences of my entire life, up there with near-drowning and public humiliation.

so no, i still haven't figured out why a beautiful, bright, sunny day like yesterday near destroyed me.

and it keeps going on.

have a great spring break, kids. it's only a day away.

posted by Open Source Food @ 10:13 AM 2 comments

i think it's pretty ridiculous that in the span of a week, it went from almost summer to in-the-middle-of winter in berkeley. and it happened pretty suddenly, too; it was shorts weather one day, then out of the blue i had to look for my sweatshirt that had been carefully stashed away up above my clothespace.

it's also weird to be here during spring break when nothing's happening. i wanted to do something but the more i look into actually planning and executing something, the further away i get from more days of spring break. it's a vicious, vicious cycle, it is, just laying here around town, munching on chips, watching cable television, waiting for my laundry to get done.

have you ever noticed the sound of rain when it hits different surfaces? i wasn't even paying that much attention when all of a sudden i heard the rain hit my windows. it sounded like glass bells, with a nice resonant thump that's too pretty for that action. there was rain on asphalt which sounded like little feet scampering on the road; there was rain on foliage which just reminds me of peaceful nights and going to sleep.

more memory-evoking, though, is that smell. every time before it rains, the soil starts to smell like it's going to be ready to soak it all in. wet pavement just brings me back to suburbia -- it was the signature smell of my formative years in anaheim, when the air would get too dry and the sun would be too hot and we'd still water our lawns because it was in the middle of the fucking desert hills and we didn't know any better because the developer thought it would be a nice place to put tract housing. (notice how i don't like sprawl?)

i'm pretty sure the weather, among all things, will clear up soon and make it better again in california. (i mean, it could most definitely be worse; just look at boston!)

speaking of getting better again, the movies i have seen recently have gotten a lot better. they tapered off since ong-bak; i saw be cool; gunner palace; steamboy (no, it's not porn; it's anime); and constantine, to name a few. the one movie i still have on my "to-see" list is gurinder chadha (bend it like beckham)'s clever bride and prejudice. so far, the reviews liked it. (and if you want my take on any of those movies i mentioned -- or basically any movie i've seen so far -- just let me know.)

all right! kaeli gets a cookie! nadmivwag indeed!

posted by Open Source Food @ 8:08 PM 1 comments

"you got terrible vision if you don't see that i'm in love with you and how that means everything"

i've been on a kick listening to rhett miller recently after rediscovering that i had his cd in my collection, always being flipped past and over until i finally decided that my cd player would get good use out of this wonderfully dreamy cd.

i don't think any of his stuff got real big, although i think i like it much better than a lot of my stuff because it was produced by jon brion (see punch-drunk love, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, i ? huckabees, fiona apple's when the pawn..., rufus wainwright's self-titled...). it's good music to listen to on my way to class or on my way home. it mellows me out.

speaking of mellowing out, the start of the flow of midterm grades is coming back. it looks all right, some shabbier than others, others quite shamble-tastic, but more often than not they're crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside.

and man, am i ready for spring break.

so ready.

posted by Open Source Food @ 12:58 PM 2 comments

pop quiz!

points to anyone who can remember what nadmivwag stands for. answer correctly and you get a cookie.

for those of you who don't get that horribly inside joke, don't bother. it's too nice outside here at cal for me to worry about anything. it's shorts weather! and it's only the second week of march!

things have been going rather swimmingly on all fronts. the weather's nice. every time i'm scheduled to work, someone calls me up to either take my shift or tell me that i'm not working because of several force majeures. i don't mind; it frees up my time.

first wave of midterms officially ends next thursday. oh man. hooray for disorganized professors and scheduling problems.

the weather's too beautiful. i can't sit here inside and type anymore.

it's like summer but nicer! and with work! so not really like summer but only kinda!

posted by Open Source Food @ 5:07 PM 3 comments

yeah, it's about damn time for a facelift. and yes, it's a stock template, but who the fuck cares? bitches do.

and i cleaned up that mess of a bloglist, too, so yay. (if you want on, feel free to let me know.)

man, i couldn't wait for this weekend to begin, but now, i can't wait for it to end.

i don't want to do anything substantive. i don't want to sit and study about city and regional planning, i don't want to talk about transportation policies and urban design and all these other things that just seem silly and mundane but are the most interesting things on the planet.

it's a consensus, with my fellow friends in the department, that our linguistics class is not so fun. we're behind by two weeks, and we're not even close to finishing up what was supposed to be a phonology review and moving on to something more useful like morphology, when none of us had studied that before.

syntax is great. my professor knows what she's doing. and we like it.

i just signed my petition to minor form. i should be donw with it by the time i graduate.

the mice in the office look friendly enough.

i don't want to do this anymore. i'm starting to get real tired of it, real fast. but i know i just have to power through, power through, and not look back once i've crossed that line.

i've been studying my ass off, and i'd never studied my ass off here at cal before. i've been known to party the night before midterms, i've been known to party the night before a final, i've been known to show up to a final an hour and a half late and still manage to leave before half the people there. i'm paying for it now, now when i can't fucking seem to absorb any information after lecture and i feel like every time i'm writing an essay i'm just putting drivel on eight more pages because i really don't know that much about it.

yeah, i can make words sound big, but am i doomed to make myself only feel smart by belittling everyone else around me with sesquipedalia?

i shouldn't think too much. i need beer.

posted by Open Source Food @ 8:16 PM 1 comments