Random Thoughts Part I

So not really in the mood to type a "well-constructed" (or as well-constructed as they come in Elaine's world)/thesis-driven post at the moment, but am strangely in the mood to blog something. So here goes the 1st edition of a segment we shall be calling "random thoughts." (I have a feeling this will turn out to be quite a common segment for this blog considering how 79.3% of what I think everyday is pretty much random)


-The current blog background I have of dandelion seeds blowing in the wind always reminds me of that one scene from Beauty and the Beast (one of my all-time favorite Disney movies!) where she's singing after her distinctly unpleasant "proposal" experience with Gaston and watching a trail of dandelion seeds float away in the breeze. (This also happens to be a scene I was always trying to recreate throughout my childhood every time I saw a dandelion puff ... and even now =P) I think the reason why I like this particular scene so much is because I've always felt a special connection to  the lyrics that Belle sings at that point of the movie: "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere/I want it more than I can tell/And for once it might be grand/To have someone understand/ I want so much more than they've got planned ..." - (and because I'v always had an odd affinity for dandelions, even though many people in the U.S. don't seem to be too fond of them.)

-I solemnly swear that gas prices are the closet thing to "playing the stock market" I'll ever do in this lifetime. (Call me old-fashioned or what-have-you but the idea of earning money based off of how highly other people are valuing/devaluing a certain company has always sounded a bit shady to me ...) Perhaps someone who actually knows stuff about business will be able to enlighten me more on matters such as the stock market one of these days.

-October days have been gloriously colorful and tinglingly beautiful thus far - (there's nothing quite like the delicious crunching sound of fallen leaves.) Indeed, I like the sound so much that I make it a game to try and bike over as many crunchy-looking leaves as possible and get a bit sad every time I miss a particularly crispy one. (The "Midwest" in me will always crave the presence of four distinct seasons <3)

-Went to V. Picasso for the first time after "meaning to go" for the past year or so. Found the atmosphere to be very lovely and am hoping to go again on one of their proper salsa nights  - (last night was devoted to some other sort of special event but I'm not sure what exactly ...) Added Chocolate Martini & "Sex in Barcelona" (some sort of sangria with tangerine, pomegranate, and red wine overtones to it, if I remember correctly) to the list of cocktails I've tried. ^.^ (Both are delicious, in case anyone was wondering)

-I really want to finish reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and start reading The Exiled Queen by Cinda Williams Chima - (so excited that it came out!)

-Learned how to cut a bagel into a 2-sided mobius strip today! ^.^ Must admit, I'm very proud. http://www.georgehart.com/bagel/bagel.html (I found this guy to be absolutely adorable. A fine example of a person who has followed his passions/interests in life and turned it into an awesome career.)

-Finally cooked a proper meal after going 8 weeks into the semester. (Don't bother asking me what I was eating before because you probably don't want to know .... =P) Made an interpretation of a risotto I suppose which consisted of arborio rice, potatoes, shrooms, frozen peas, carrots, & corn, shredded mozzarella, potato soup mix, garlic powder, butter, salt, and more than half a gallon of milk. Wish I could give a more precise version of a recipe, but I apparently find matters of measurements and such to be too trivial to bother with. I suppose a good rule of thumb I go by when cooking would be "if it smells good, then the taste probably won't be too far off.

-Had some delightfully scrumptious homemade peanut-butter-biscotti-chocolate-cake with pink icing, courtesy of my wonderful friend Martha <3

-I have a bad spending problem when it comes to grocery shopping. It's starting to get a bit out of hand   =/

-I have decided to start a wine bottle collection - (I figure if I ever end up running out of space for this collection, I'll at least have a lot of fun smashing it. =D)

-If I were a car, my fuel efficiency rating would be in the negative range. It literally takes me an hour or more just to get myself amped/psyched up enough to do 5 minutes of legitimate work. >.<

-Apparently a frog goes "Ricket, ricket." (Kids say the cutest things. ^.^)

-In case you haven't noticed, I like to use emoticons a LOT. (Get used to it ^.~)

-P.S. Am loving this blogger feature of being able to edit a post anytime! Am afraid I have been exploiting it quite shamelessly =P

Stuff I've Done & Stuff to Come ... (10/08/10 - 10/15/10)

So I'm hoping to figure out how to get a little gadget going on this blog that can serve as a to-do-list of sorts. But  seeing as that will probably take me awhile to get around to, for now I'll just try and keep a weekly post of all the things I've been doing (or not been doing) for that week:

*Highlights of the Week:

-10/10/10 (I read somewhere that that date's only supposed to happen once in a millennium or something like that ... if I were to think about it more I could probably figure out if that's true or not but my brain's pretty fried at the moment)

-Lunch On Us Series @ Women's Resource Center: Topic du Jour = Domestic Violence - (interesting, informative, yet also a bit discouraging. Did you know that men are more likely to get off with lighter sentences in a case of murdering their spouse/significant other than women because they are more able to convince others that their actions were based on a "heat of the moment" event rather than women?)

-Finally visiting the Central Illinois Mosque & Islamic Center after "meaning to go" for 3 years - (met Hany, observed a few Islamic traditions, watched adorable little kids in Tae Kwon Do class as well as 2 hot women kicking each others' butts. Good times =P)

-National Coming Out Day event w/ Flo Kajan from the Bad Girls Club - (interesting lady ...) - and first time in LGBT Resource Center

-Lunch On Us Series @ AACC: (Modified) Topic of the Day = Homophobia & the Asian Community - (recent sleuth of tragic suicides, most famous of which being Tyler Clementi's ...)

-Rough day in the office with Ms. Poppy Ann but lovely day with Ms. Jess - (raised almost $80 for Food for Families)

-Scaring a van-full of guys with my driving - (perhaps this shouldn't be a "highlight" necessarily, but I'll bet it was the most excitement those guys were having for that day. ^.~)

-Doing well on my evolutionary psychology test (hooray!) - (hope I'll be able to say the same about my environmental chemistry test although conditions aren't looking particularly favorable .... =/)

*Upcoming Things to Do:

-Workshop Facilitation! - (which I just learned about today ... whoops! =( )

-ACM Reflections/Projections 2010 Conference - (hopefully will learn how to make a mobius strip out of bagels! Along with other interesting facts ....)

-Volunteer @ Crisis Nursery (both Saturday & Sunday! Don't forget!)

- #423 Doll Play Transcription!

-TFA Interview!!

-Midterm for PSYC340 SJE

-All-you-can-eat pancakes @ IHOP ^.^

-Cooking, cleaning, reading (hopefully)

Hmm .... to be updated ....

Procrastination For Sale

I feel one of the most depressing things in this world has to be a missed opportunity. Sometimes it's possible for a missed opportunity to turn out to be a crisis averted - for example a rather morbid example that is, a person may have missed the chance to book a certain flight for whatever reason, and that plane ends up crashing. That, I suppose, could be viewed as a missed opportunity, but I feel a more appropriate word might be fate or fortune in those sorts of cases. In any case, those sorts of situations are certainly not the kinds I refer to when I talk about missed opportunities.

I might as well lay out my cards right here and now - (I am hoping that this blog will be a space of brutal honesty; unless I feel my honesty is not that interesting to read about in which case I'll probably start drifting away into fantasy land - which is a place a frequent quite often ....) - and in order to know me, you must know that the biggest affliction/flaw//thing-that-drives-me-most-crazy-about-myself - (which is saying quite a lot because there are a lot of things I drive myself crazy on a daily basis, one of them being my tendency to write exceedingly loooonng sentences and then forget what I was talking about ...) - is my woeful lack of action, otherwise commonly known as laziness. Yes, laziness/procrastination/inaction is something I have in copious amounts and I believe most people would agree that that is a decidedly unhealthy and bad thing to have.


It is because of this affliction that I have had so many unfortunate missed opportunities in my life, and while I wouldn't want to go so far as to call all these missed chances "regrets, " the thought of them definitely leaves me wondering how my life could've been positively-impacted if I had only done this, this, and this vs. that, that, and that - (and usually the "thats" involve doing a lot of nothing.) To give an example of a missed opportunity I recently had, Lisa Ling (the well-respected journalist) had been on campus this past Tuesday and I was all amped to up to get the chance to meet her but due to my unfortunate choices (and the fact that I ended up taking a nap =/) I ended up not going to either of the events I had been planning on going to. (*Sigh ...)


Well, this is certainly turning out to be a depressing post - but I suppose the chosen subject matter was rather dismal to begin with. To end on a positive note, however, perhaps this would be a good time to explain how I'm hoping this blog will help hold me accountable to myself, to those who have supported me, and to life in general. As passive and lazy as I am, one of the mottos I try to live my life by follows a very "carpe diem" philosophy. (Yes, I know, very ironic and perhaps a foreshadowing to what my intended next post will be about ....) So I'm hoping this blog can serve as written proof of how I have been living my life to the best of my abilities - whether that means actively pursuing my life goals, attending interesting and fun events, thinking "deep" and/or quirky thoughts, or simply just doing what I'm supposed to be doing when I'm supposed to be doing them. 


I remember having the great fortune of meeting a U of I alum at this leadership event I attended a couple semesters ago called John Gleeson - ( a very appropriate surname, in my opinion) - who had the most systematic yet brilliant way of making sure that he lived his life the way he wished to live it. He basically found a way to break down his life goals/priorities into 20 different categories, including friends, family, health, golf, travel, mentees, etc.,  and he would score himself every week on how well he was able to attend to each of these life categories. He was also one of those people who had the most admirable habit of keeping a journal and the journals he brought along to show us were full of lovely pictures and momentos from his various adventures. Knowing myself, I don't think I'm the type of person who could carry out a system as organized as the one Mr. Gleeson has going, but the spirit of what he is doing with his life will hopefully be reflected in this humble little blog of mine.

How It All Began ...

As usual, there are a million and one things that I should be doing and yet I always manage to find a way to avoid doing what I should be doing. Actually "manage" probably isn't the "mot juste" in this case since what I really have is more like a knack and/or penchant for always doing what I shouldn't be doing. It's just one of those recurring themes of my life.

I really wish some clever person would figure out a way to invent an automatic though recorder which one could use to translate what one thinks directly into writing (get on it Nobel Prize-seeking scientists!) because I've thought about how I'd like this very first post of mine to go at least a dozen times and yet when the time comes to actually write it, it's like I've got nothing. This tends to happen with a lot of what I think about - especially homework/papers. Unfortunate really. Granted, I understand how scary the thought can be of having every single thought you have recorded into nonretractable proof, but as of now the positives are outweighing the negatives in my book. Hmm ... maybe more on that later. There are certainly some interesting moral quandaries to pursue on that subject.

Well, it's probably better if I just get this first post over with. There always seems to be a lot of pressure when it comes to the first of anything really given how critical first impressions can be. Well, in my case it's probably better to just set the standards really low so as not to get anyone's expectations too high. This blog is really just a way to try and get me to hold myself accountable in ways which I will explain in some future post. (I would really like to get this post posted before it becomes 10/12 because in reference to the title of this post,it just so happens that my parents met each other for the very first time on October 11, 1973. Aww ... ^.^) Whether it is coincidence or not, I'm not sure, but today just so happens to be National Coming Out Day as well. So Happy National Coming Out Day everyone, and so it begins ...