Wednesday, January 21, 2004

repetition, I think

It would appear that I am missing out.

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but there is no time to get anything done, which is quite a paradox since I spend the majority of my time getting nothing done.

Aaaanyway ... The semester has started, but I'm still at home in New Jersey, since I'm not enrolled in college at the moment. Ha. I leave for New Zealand in February and until then I'm doing a very short (three weeks!) internship with a publishing company in New York. The commute is about an hour and a half, which is a major pain, but the work isn't that difficult and I get to read a lot, which I generally enjoy. Plus, it's good experience, blah blah blah.

Last week I went up to visit school/my boyfriend/my two best friends for about five days, which ended up really flying by even though none of us had anything to do. (Well, they had to go to classes, ha to them!) The only problem is that I left Animal Crossing in my boyfriend's dorm room ... Damn him! He's probably fishing right now!!!

Not really. He's probably at class, like I would be. Man, can't get over how good that feels. ;-) Just kidding.

So yeah, I think I'm probably going to go up next weekend ... maybe the weekend after that ... and maybe the weekend after that. I also need to get around to study abroad things I haven't taken care of, like packing and, er, choosing my classes. I'm really a slacker, I think.

In good news, my dad is finally getting the high-definition adapter thing for our HDTV, so tonight I will be able to watch the Apprentice in HDTV (at least, if my understanding is correct)!! Sweet! Anyone want to come over?

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Sunday, January 11, 2004

another e. phenomenon, discussed.

For some reason, if I'm not working a desk job or taking classes, I don't really feel like going online or even on the computer at all. Which is why I've been scarce around OB and myO for a few weeks now. Thought it was just going to Hong Kong at first, but now I realize it's just vacation altogether. I have no idea why ... but yeah, so I'll probably be a little scarce until the 20th when I start an internship, I would guess. I'm going to try to come on more, but for some reason, right now it's just more appealing to sit and stare at the TV or something like that.

Oh, I finally bought Animal Crossing, too ... I'd probably be playing it right now if Tom Nook hadn't closed his shop for renovations. Damn you, Tom Nook ... Actually I don't know if that's just a Sunday thing, or what, since I've only had it for five days or so. I thought it was kind of stupid at first, and still do actually, but somehow I find it really, really addictive. So. I'm looking forward to expanding my house since at the moment literally every square of it is covered with an item; I don't have enough space.

Well, that was a waste of text for anybody who's never played AC. Other than that I haven't really done much, just the usual shopping and hanging out with friends. If I were going back to normal school, I'd have to start classes tomorrow -- that would be soooo depressing. Then again, since I'm studying abroad, I think I'm going to get kind of bored sitting around here. What can I say, I'm impossible to please.

Last night my friends and I played Halo and James Bond: Nightfire to try and figure out which one is better. Personally, I'll always like Nightfire better because I enjoy realistic weapons over the futuristic stuff in Halo. Just in case you guys were ever asked, "Which does Ellie like better, Nightfire or Halo?" Now you know. Good.
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Monday, January 5, 2004

return of the ellie: RotE.

Ha, Sister Act 2 is on TV. Yes. You have to love Sister Act. Well, I do. Have to, that is.

Ha, I see now why AzureWolf said I wasn't myself ... because I'm so darn weird.

Anyway, I'm back from Hong Kong in one piece, had a pretty great time over Christmas and New Year's. My family isn't that big on gifts, so I didn't get anything spectacular from them, although I am planning to get my brother two video games (probably one for GBA and one for GameCube) since I missed both Christmas and his birthday. Considering he gave me this really great jacket two birthdays ago, that is really stylish and which I still love, I think he deserves it.

Any idea for him? I'm thinking of FFTactics for GBA, we talked about it a little bit, but I can't decide what for the Cube. He loves LOTR but he already has RotK ... anyone know if it's worth my buying one of the two previous ones? Or can suggest any other fun games? He likes ... well ... everything, I guess ...

Came back to find six pages worth of Otaku Awards nominations already, which is just ... prolific, I suppose. Personally I'm really bad at thinking of these things, and I'm well aware that there's next to no votes in my post so far ... I'm going back, I promise!!

I had some good conversations upon coming back and finally getting on AIM. You should IM me! (Who am I talking to? Anyone who's up for having a conversation with me.) Then we could chat! and stuff.

All right, that sounded desperate looking back on it, but wasn't meant that way ... ah well. Lauryn Hill is about to forge her mother's permission slip so that she can go to the choir competition, or whatever. Must be off! :P
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Friday, December 26, 2003

a change of plans.
Heh, so I was going to set aside the rest of my online time tonight simply to go through other people's myOs and comment because I want to do more of that, but I got about halfway through my list and wanted to write my own update. :-P Selfishness, yay!

Anyway, I'm in Hong Kong at the moment. We (my family) actually spent Christmas Eve and the majority of Christmas day (I think ... it's so hard to tell when you're jumping thirteen hours ahead) on the plane, which was a 15.5-hour direct flight from Newark. Which was ... er ... Well, it was what it was. I didn't really mind, though, because to be honest it didn't particularly feel like Christmas this year. Not in a bad way ... it just never quite set in.

Being that I'm up at midnight but appropriately sleepy, I'd say I've pretty much gotten over the jetlag, which is darn good since I only got in yesterday. :)

Reading about other people's Christmases (and, earlier in the year, Thanksgivings) makes me feel very odd. The only other person in my entire extended family who lives in America is one cousin, so we never have family get-togethers on holidays aside from my parents and brother and me. Most of our family is in Hong Kong, though, so this Christmas I actually spent at dinner with more people than the four of us! It was a little weird, though, since I don't really know my uncles and cousins and such very well at all. I see them all maybe once every three years.

Still, it's nice to be back (I lived here for two years when I was much younger) (I'm Chinese, by the way, though I don't speak it. I understand most of what people say to me and respond in English). There've been a lot of changes since the last time I was here (five years ago or so), and it's a little odd that I feel like I don't recognize anything ... then again, that's to be expected. This is a constantly changing city, and it's really pretty amazing. Makes me wish I had appreciated it more when we lived here, though.

So yes, my being in HK is one of the reasons I'm rather sparse on OB and such :) But still, Happy Holidays everybody! A day or two late!

Ha, by the way, AzureWolf said I haven't sounded like myself recently in my myO posts ... I don't know if that's true, or if I'm just ... weirder than he initially thought. :-P I don't feel not myself ... but you never know with these things.
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Monday, December 22, 2003

strange effects.

You know, my hits increase way more when I don't update this page. People sure are strange. :P Just kidding. Well, not really, people really are strange, but ...

I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

Anyway, thanks for all the kind words about my studying abroad. I do think it'll be a fun experience, but it was an emotional last week as I was packing up to go home (hm, as I said in my last post, oops). Looking around my empty room was sad, except that I had kind of spent the previous two hours frantically throwing everything in it into a box or bag and I was worrying about how incredibly dusty it was and if I would get fined by the custodial staff for leaving the room so completely dirty. But other than that. It was sad. Really.

I drove home in a record two hours, though, which was incredibly nice. (The drive is usually about two and a half hours, and can be up to three and a half or four with traffic.) There was no traffic, but still, two hours is really, really short. (I drove my boyfriend home as well, and when his dad heard we were back already he said, "She drove too fast, didn't she.")

I saw LOTR on Saturday (before I got back home) and, obviously, really enjoyed it. It really is amazing that the director was able to direct three good, epic movies in a row. Right afterwards, I told my friends that I thought it was good, but really too long and I had no urge to watch any of them again, and probably wouldn't for about ten years.

When I walked in the door to my house my parents were watching LOTR weekend on Starz! (a movie channel), so I sat there and watched the first and second movies for about six more hours. :-D Oops. It was really cool, though, watching them all in a short span like that made everything clear (also, having to explain everything to my parents six times even though they too had already seen all three movies helped clarify things in my mind). I was really impressed with how they did the love story between Aragorn and Arwen, though ... and am tempted to say it was better than how Tolkien wrote it. I think Tolkien probably had all of it in his head very clearly, but didn't portray it as clearly in the book because he kind of assumed the readers would know about it; I don't think the movies changed the essence of what Tolkien was thinking of at all, which I was really impressed with.

Also over the weekend I watched Hellsing. I've decided that I need to get used to the fact that anime never or hardly ever has a satisfying conclusion, but merely leaves things completely up in the air, twisted around and around itself, and confused. Hellsing did have a decent conclusion to its storyline, but there were bigger overarching questions that never got answered. I read they were planning on making a second season which didn't pan out, which may be part of the reason -- but I think it's just something I have to accept. Pity, as I think conclusions are the most important parts of any story ... but oh well. It was still a good series, definitely gorgeous animation and very cool character design, and the story that did get told and completed was assuredly worth it. Yay!

All right, this may be one of my longest posts ever. Time to take a shower.
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Thursday, December 18, 2003

weekday update.

The server problems have been fixed, yay! Thanks Adam!

It's finals week for me now, but I pretty much have no finals. I decided not to take the physical chemistry one I otherwise would be at even as we speak/read/type, because you can drop the lowest test (yes including the final) and I did pretty well on the other ones. That, and I really didn't feel like studying.

I have a final tomorrow, but I'm taking the class CR/D (pass/fail) so I'm not too concerned about it. I do want to actually read the rest of the material, though ...

And, I have to pack up my room, which does add slightly to the stress. For those of you who didn't know, I am indeed studying abroad next semester in New Zealand. I'm torn between being excited and sad about it ... Mostly at the moment I'm just sad. It's long and I could talk about it forever but I would end up just saying the same thing over and over again, it'll be fun but it'd be easier to stay here with my friends.

But anyway, as I was saying, packing up my room is a total pain. Blech. Plus it's sad to see all my decorations come down. I liked my decorations. *pouts*

All right, my friend and I said we were going to leave in fifteen minutes and it's been half an hour ...
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Saturday, December 13, 2003

my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.

Congratulations to Megan and Tony (man those names look weird) who look like they're getting married as a result of Megan's disastrous results on my quiz. Don't say I never did anything for you. ;)

Anyway. Sort of on the topic of online board marriage, I kind of wish my (real-life) boyfriend would get on OB. I think he'd have fun. But he's more one of those watcher-types, I know he already watches tons of NBA boards discussing the Nets (he/we are Nets fans, okay mostly him, but I know who most of their players are at least ...) during, erm, peak season or whatever you'd call it. ... Where was I going with that? Oh yeah, so I think that he'd have fun on the boards, but I know he'd never join (he already thinks I'm weird for modding on them, haha).

I wonder what username he'd pick ...

Speaking of my boyfriend, I was just checking my friends' away messages (an online phenomenon that will never be explained: why do people automatically do that??) and one is going to a DMB concert in Providence (which is only a couple hours away from here). I'm such a bad girlfriend ... I've been meaning to look up concert dates for Dave Matthews Band forever, because he really wants to go to one of their concerts. (Although U2 is his dream, I don't think that one will ever come true.) But I haven't looked them up. Thus I have not bought tickets or made arrangements to go to any concert for him.

Not that that makes me a bad girlfriend ... I just keep meaning to do it and I don't. I suppose what it really makes me is a lazy person.

This is all a very odd post. The Otaku server has been slow for me recently, so I find browsing the boards and stuff kind of tedious :P. It'll probably pick back up soon enough, though.

Oh yeah -- here are some fun sites:
http://ww12.e-tractions.com/snowglobe/globe.htm
http://www.joeykatzen.com/alpha/
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Thursday, December 11, 2003

just a bit more.

Okay. More procrastination from the very same paper, on the spelling of the word "sacrilegious." On that, I have to say: WTF? "Sacrilegious" is the right spelling, yet to me it seems closely linked to the word "religious." In which the E and the I are totally switched. What's up with that?

Right. Well. Glad to bring up that scintillating topic of discussion. It's always bothered me, though.

Also, I will point your attention to the quiz I made after seeing Arcadia's (I'm such a poser). Go take it pweez, I am curious. (And, obviously, in a really strange mood, but what else is new?)
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Wednesday, December 10, 2003

facial hair.

So I've shut down Internet Explorer to really settle down and do some background reading for my paper, when unfortunately I open the book and the first thing I see is a picture of the guy I'm writing on. I think, "Wow, he's pretty hideous," then I think, "Actually he's not that bad, I just don't like that huge beard."

Which brings me to my quick myO point, before I seriously do get down to my paper: under no circumstances whatsoever do I like facial hair (er, you know, aside from eyebrows and whatnot). I absolute always dislike it, and I actually cannot see why anyone would like it. Generally I'm pretty good at putting myself in other people's shoes and seeing why they like things (for instance, I don't find butts attractive, but I understand why some people do). But with facial hair, nope. It's just not attractive.

Guys, shave your faces.
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Monday, December 8, 2003

reading week, Christmas music

I've missed being in RPGs on OB, so I've joined a few more recently. They are still fun, I'm glad to report. :-)

Anyway, last weekend my residential college (basically, my dormitory) had a holiday dinner and ball, since it was the last week of classes. They were really fun, as always -- plus, there's this (very, very informal) handbell choir that forms and plays every year for the holiday dinner, and this year two friends and I organized it. We each conducted one song, which was ridiculously fun even though our performance ended up being terrible. (I'm doing a really bad job of explaining this. The handbell choir is just for fun, since our college owns a set of handbells and would never use it otherwise, so you don't need to have any musical knowledge to join the choir. Which leads to all sorts of beautiful performances.)

There have been a lot of Christmas songs on the radio, whereas it hardly feels like Christmas at all to me for some reason. Though I have to admit last Friday, when I realized (two hours after it had started) that it was snowing, I was really excited. For all of ten minutes or so, until I actually had to go outside and walk in it. Whereupon I became grumpy again.

Today is the first day of reading week, which is a week where very few classes meet and is supposedly dedicated to studying for finals, which are next week. Have I gotten anything done? Not really. Do I have a test tomorrow in physical chemistry? Oh, yes, most definitely.
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