child devil of tuna

Hallo everyone! I've been back for a few days now, but in the process of getting readjusted to the oppressive heat of the lovely Santa Clarita Valley, I've decided that all I am capable of doing is sitting on my ass, drinking iced tea, and finishing off the 4th season of Buffy. And since my parents decided that air conditioning is an unnecessary luxury, we are all forced to turn on fans to create some sort of air circulation. I wonder what the difference in electricity usage is between 2 hours of central air-conditioning (which is all I ask, from the hours of 2pm to 4pm) and 4 oscillating fans which are constantly on. But I shouldn't complain. Speaking to people from Berkeley and San Jo, the entire state of California is enveloped in a stifling heat wave. My condolences to my fellow NorCal buddies; I share your pain.

But the weather is not what's on my mind right now, although it is a great way to make small talk. What I really wanted to talk about is MANGOES. On the last full day that my family spent in Hawaii, we discovered a farmers' market. While most fruit was strange and foreign looking, there was standard tropical fruit fare: papayas, bananas, and of course, mangoes. My mom was the first to go instantly insane. I think she bought every ripe mango that one of the fruitsellers had. Something like 10 pounds. I was not terribly excited, having found about five years ago that I had suddenly and unexpectedly become allergic to mangoes. But when everyone else started eating them and saying how delicious and juicy and ripe and perfect these Hawaiian tree-ripened mangoes were, I decided that I'd risk it. Good news all around. I found that just as mysteriously as the allergy had appeared, it had disappeared and for the first time in years, I got to enjoy the yummy goodness that is mango.

On the other hand, Hawaii did have some unpleasantnesses. While islands like Oahu and Maui are highly developed and people friendly, we stayed in a hotel on the windward side of the Big Island which is one huge underdevoloped rain forest, complete with giant man-eating mosquitoes. OK, maybe they weren't giant, but they were definitely man-eating. I'm still suffering the aftermath of their collective midnight feeding frenzies.

Summary: Mangoes = good. Mosquitoes = bad.
And in between eating mangoes and getting bitten by mosquitoes, we went hiking, snorkeling, swimming, and sunburning. You can see pictures of these various events here (#8 is for you guys, Isabella and Slow n Steady!). The coolest thing by far was hiking over old lava flows to get to actual red lava flowing from Kiluea crater. It was definitely worth the two and a half hour round trip. There are no beaches on the Big Island (save for maybe one or two) so while this trip didn't turn out to be quite how I imagined it would be, I still had a great time and it was definitely worth it.

And Eva, I am sorry. I could not bring you a Hawaiian man. It's illegal to bring Hawaiian produce or live animals to mainland. I do have a lei for you, though.

posted by Grace @ 6/30/2003 09:34:00 PM 0 comments

So I went to the dentist today and as usual, it's more bad news. I swear, I'll have dentures by the time I'm 40 or something and I'm relying very heavily on my hopes that medicine will make huge advancements and that they will come up with some super-cool way to preserve my teeth. I mean, what more do they want me to do? I brush after every meal if I can, I floss, and I mouthwash at least once a day. What am I doing wrong??? Oh well. At least I'm not dead or something. I guess if I were a cave-person, I would have become the hapless meal of some frightening saber-toothed tiger years ago and at least I can say that I've made it this far in my life. I'm glad that I'm not a cave-person.

Another reason why I'm glad that I'm not a cave-person is that tomorrow, bright and early (actually, it won't be bright; I'm leaving at 4 in the morning), my family and I are heading off to the Big Island of Hawaii to spend the next week. So I'll be gone until next Wednesday! Byeeeeeeee!

posted by Grace @ 6/16/2003 01:57:00 PM 0 comments

I have been at home for a week and a half. So what have I been doing with all of my time, you may ask? I'm actually not too clear on that myself. Well, some days were filled by the obligatory "going to the homes of close relatives (grandparents mostly) so that they harrass me about my future plans and if I'm going to go and be a nice doctor now." Other than that, I've been doing a LOT of unpacking and cleaning and throwing away of old junk. It's amazing just how much crap one person can amass in four years; it frightens me sometimes. That, and I haven't given my room a good cleaning out since before high school, I think. I am the world's biggest pack rat and if my house were to be buried in a giant avalanche, 2000 years from now, some archaelogist would have a field day sorting through my shit. Some interesting finds:

--Valentine's Day cards from 2nd? 3rd? grade
--Six sealed Betamax tapes. I kid you not. We still have a Beta player somewhere...
--Sand in a ziplock baggie (from my family's trip to the Grand Canyon in '94, I think)
--Movie ticket stub for "Space Jam" dated 11.23.96. Cost of the ticket: $3.75. Ahhhh, the good old days.
--5 1/2 inch floppy disk. The ones that are big, black and actually floppy. We still have a working computer that has a 5 1/4 floppy disk drive. I wonder what's on this disk?

Other than cleaning, I've watched way too many movies in the last few days:

Akira (disturbing and confusing)
American Psycho (also disturbing and confusing, but I liked it)
Animatrix DVD (very cool. everyone, go watch it)
Blue Crush (I know, I know... well, I LIKED it)
Bruce Almighty (better than I thought it was going to be)
Equlibrium (GOOD GOOD GOOD! if I could recommed only one of these movies to you, it would be this one!)
Finding Nemo (very cute! Pixar outdoes itself each time)
Minority Report (I thought I had the ending all figured out, but I didn't)
The Ring (seriously people, it wasn't THAT scary)
The Simpsons Second Season (yeah, the whole thing. I know, I need to get a life)

OK, back to unpacking and cleaning for me. I swear, by the time I'm done here, I'm just going to have to pack it all up again to go to Japan.

posted by Grace @ 6/12/2003 10:06:00 PM 0 comments

In honor of the boredom that has been my life for the past few days, I bring to you, devoted readers, a website that will kill at least 10 minutes of your day. Revel in the joys of bad Asian-ified Engrish. This guy updates frequently, so bookmark this page if you like what you see!

And if you just can't get enough, you can make your own "engrish." It's fast & easy (perfect for you, Eva!) and provides hours of enjoyment. Well, maybe not hours, but it can kill another 10 minutes of your day. So, go to Alta Vista's Babel Fish and:

Step 1: Type in a grammatically correct English sentence that makes perfect sense.
Step 2: Set it to translate from "English to Japanese" and hit the "Translate" button.
Step 3: Copy the Japanese translation and paste it into the "Translate Again" box.
Step 4: Set it to translate from "Japanese to English." Hit the "Translate" button.
Step 5: See how far off the re-translation is. Usually, it doesn't even resemble the original sentence.

Here are some real-life examples:

Original sentence: I like to go camping on weekends.
Re-translation: I weekend camping like the fact that it goes.

Original sentence: Grace is the coolest person in the world.
Re-translation: Elegance is the person where the world is coolest. (suddenly, I'm elegant....)

Original sentence: (my favorite one) I like drinking iced tea in the morning.
Re-translation: (are you READY for this one??) I freezing and others during morning like the fact that the brown which is done is drunk.

Have fun. And let me know of some of the crazy re-translations you come up with!

posted by Grace @ 6/11/2003 12:45:00 PM 0 comments

There must be an easier way to do this. I'm kicking myself in the head for never bothering to even learn html. So here is my art page. Very heavy on the photoshop and very weak on all other aspects. The entire page is just one huge image file and all of the links are hotspots. haha.... Serves me right. The rest is not done yet; photos, links, etc. etc. soon to come.... hopefully! Most of it you've all seen before. Some of it is new. And just for fun, I included the very first anime drawing I ever did (3 years ago?? Can't remember). Go on. LAUGH ALL YOU WANT!

posted by Grace @ 6/08/2003 09:08:00 PM 0 comments

Updates are few and far between. I'm sorry. I just have no need to procrastinate. I discovered that I only blog when I don't really have time to and now that I'm sitting at home doing nothing in particular, it's very difficult to find motivation to write anything. But the events that occured today warranted a little blogging.

My brother graduated from high school today. That little booger managed to pass all of his classes this semester. But in any case, I went along to the Saugus High School graduation ceremony and of course, I see many many people with whom I also went to high school, jr. high, elementray school, etc etc. Needless to say, it was a very odd feeling. I wasn't sure if I should go up to those people and say "hi" or if I should pretend I didn't see them. It makes me wonder if they're also making that conscious decision about me. And then there were people whose names I could not, for the life of me, remember. I remembered all sorts of facts about them: "gee, I ran track with her for 3 years" or "we were in AP calculus together".... you get the idea. It's so odd. Just four years ago, these people were my life and high school seemed so important. But now we've all moved on and gone our separate ways. I keep in contact with only a handful of people from high school.

I did get a chance to talk to some people who I was particularly close to and on one hand, it felt really good to catch up on the last four years and find out how they've been doing and what they plan to do in the future. On the other hand, it was kind of sad when we parted saying things like "good luck with the rest of your life." Because honestly, unless I make some sort of valient effort (and that effort has to be reciprocated), I most likely won't get an opportunity to see them again. Many of them, including me, were there today to see their younger siblings graduate and no family has a limitless supply of younger siblings to gradaute so that all of us old folk can meet up at our old stomping ground every few years. I'm feeling gnawing pang of nostalgia and it makes me want to call, email, and IM the people who I was close to, but for some reason, have drifted far from over the last four years.

I was just informed today that a friend from Saugus was getting married tonight (well, by now, he's already married). And I also heard that another friend of mine was engaged to be married sometime this summer, after her own graduation in a couple of weeks. There are those who working, going to grad school, moving clear out of California to take on jobs elsewhere. People are going places while I'm stalling for time. I was never one for making my own decisions. Up until now, I've been pretty much told what was best for me and I just went ahead and did it. Now I have to start planning the rest of my life and I find it more difficult than any MCB final that I've ever taken.

And now that I've graduated from Berkeley, I have this fear. Is this just a cycle that I'll repeat over and over again? Four years from now, will I long for the glory days of my undergraduate career at Berkeley? Will I be that lame person who never returns phone calls and emails? Will I lose touch with the friends I've met at Cal? Who's to say I won't or I will? Just four years ago, I felt that the people that I grew up with were my close friends and yet, here I am saying "goodbye forever, have a wonderful life." Well, I guess only time will tell...

posted by Grace @ 6/06/2003 11:56:00 PM 0 comments