!!!!

Oh my God.

STRAIGHT A's! FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER! Hell yea, and on Christmas Eve too. How awesome is that?

I know, this isn't a very triumphant return to blogging for me; I might put up a more substantial post soon.

In the meantime, I shall just bask in my happy, warm fuzzy feelings.

Read on...

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Random Worries

I know it's slightly too early to worry about this, but I'm not quite looking forward to the end of the year Christmas break.

While I really want this semester to end, the end of the semester will just mean to me that most of my friends will be traveling elsewhere. And now that I've grown really close to them, much more so than before, that is something that I know will just suck.

Haha I don't even know why I'm writing this now.

Also, it's odd how quiet I've been in terms of writing in here. I guess I've just been busy; not just with academic stuff, but with other aspects of life as well.

I've been considering closing this blog down, as I've done before (although for different reasons), as I just haven't been paying enough attention to it. But I'm pretty sure I'll keep it open. I mean, even if people stop reading it and only visit my blog once every blue moon (which is probably already the case now), at least there is the possibility of an update or two.

I'm also quite horrible at keeping in touch with my friends back home and in other places, so I guess this place helps to give them snippets of my life here in the US.

Rawr.

Although, there are things I would never write here still, even if they are integral to my life in the US. Ah well.

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An Epic Update

Because I finally had one long day of rest and nothingness, I decided to post an update. Yes, I know I've been a bad blogger. I'm sorry. But I've been really busy (not necessarily with just academic stuff, but with life in general), which is why I haven't had the energy or inclination to post anything.

As usual, I will be posting pictures at the end of the post. I would do a blow-by-blow account but I think I want to post quite a number of pictures, so doing that would probably mean that I would not have any sleep tonight. So I am taking the easy way out by writing first and saving the pictures for later.

Life in general has been pretty good. I've been exhausted lately simply because I've been hanging out with friends way too much. Today's perhaps the first day in a long time that I've been able to just sit around and read all day long, which is what I did. I managed to finish a 603-page novel today; I read about a quarter of it last night, and the rest I finished today. I am inordinately proud of that fact; I am back on form, so to speak. I don't recall the last time I did that--it was probably over the summer.

It's not that I now have a crazy social life or anything; I just hang out with the same few people all the time. Same two people, actually. So yea, I haven't suddenly become a wild social butterfly or anything.

Oh yea! Let me digress a bit. I apparently wasn't experienced enough to get the positions I wanted, but apparently the foreign student office (where I went for my interview) somewhat liked me enough to create a new International Cultural Festival coordinator position for me.

Problem is, the job description is so vague right now that I have no idea what I will be doing at this point. They haven't really decided what I should be doing; they've assured me that I will definitely be getting a job, but as of now they have no idea what to do with me. This is both exciting but confusing. On one hand I want to be excited at the prospect of having a job, but on the other hand it seems like right now nothing is going to happen; I'm just waiting to hear from them regarding what I will be doing, specifically.

I could write more about that job, but right now I don't feel like it. The whole situation is confusing me.

Okay, digression over.

So what have I been up to, specifically? Last month I did Halloween (as you know) and carved a pumpkin. Soon after I attended the ISA Bollywood night. Then there was my 3-hour hike up and down the nearby Mount Sentinel, which was extremely exhausting but rewarding in more ways than one. The most recent event was the ISA Thanksgiving Banquet.

Pumpkin carving was, well, just that--pumpkin carving. Nothing too special about it. I did carve a pretty sexy pumpkin though. Like I said, I bet all the other pumpkins wanted to sleep with my pumpkin because it was so sexy, as you will witness yourself in a picture later on.

The ISA Bollywood night was pretty fun. The food was great! Vegetarian, but still amazing. Then we watched Bride and Prejudice, which I guess most of the people enjoyed (myself included, though I've watched it before), but someone was complaining that it was an unrealistic representation of life :P. I don't disagree, but it doesn't stop me from enjoying it anyway.

And then there was the 3-hour hike up the nearby mountain with. I don't recall the last time I exerted myself physically like that. My legs were aching already after only like 15-20 minutes into the walk. And I really needed to pee; I forgot to pee before going up the mountain. I am such a genius. In any case, I can't remember who it was--jae or june--but someone mentioned that we should play truth or dare to entertain ourselves during the hike. So we did, although dare was picked only once.

I have to say, that was a most... enlightening... game of truth or dare. Let's just say that a whole lot of intimate/private/personal questions were thrown around. We practically know everything about each other now. Ah well, it was really effective in keeping my mind off how exhausted I was. After awhile I really began to enjoy the hike, probably due to the mix of the beautiful scenery and the company I was keeping. It took us slightly more than two hours to get to the peak, I think, and by then I was exhausted but way too excited to have reached the top.

There is something about high places that heightens the beauty of the land. I guess it's the same with paintings; if you see the whole painting is looks beautiful, but if you just look and one small section it would look ordinary. I guess being in a high place gives us the opportunity to view the land in much the same way as we would an entire painting. When on level ground we are just looking at bits of the land, and nothing more.

If I didn't believe before that Missoula was a beautiful town surrounded by beautiful countryside, I believe it now. The view was, as views are commonly described, absolutely breathtaking. It helped that we reached the peak at the early stages of sunset; the lighting made the surrounding hills look like paintings. I could see why an inhabitant of a town like Missoula would care more about the preservation of the environment compared to someone like me. It is hard not to when they are probably reminded of nature and its inherent beauty on a daily basis.

I was pretty disappointed by the fact that June's camera died at the peak though. We had only managed to get a handful of black and white shots; the camera died before we could take non-black and white shots. Nonetheless, the whole experience was great; the scenery, the achievement of reaching the peak, and the company, of course.

The most recent event was the Thanksgiving banquet, which was held just two days ago. I really enjoyed it; the food was great, and as usual I had fun with my friends. They served the usual turkey and such, which tasted really good; I should've ate more, dammit. I really enjoyed the various performances by the students as well. All in all, it was basically a great night.

Interspersed between all of those events are random hangout sessions with me and my friends. If someone had told me last semester that I would be spending this much time with friends this semester, I would have thought they were crazy. But yea. Things have turned out to be different than I expected them to be. I didn't expect to get so close to people, particularly the two J's (who are mentioned above :P). It is extremely heartening, but I think some part of me finds it to be alarming as well.

I don't know. I love them to death, don't get me wrong, but I just guess that I'm not used to trusting people so much. I hate that I keep bringing up the issue of trust, but eh, I might as well mention it. I find that around them I don't edit my answers or 'frame' my personality as much as I do around other people. Maybe I did, at first, but now I find that I do it less. It's just, I don't know. Maybe I was just tired of controlling how I wanted people to perceive me, and they just appeared in my life at the right time for it.

We are, if anything, absolutely honest with each other. I guess it has to do with the fact that they are as interested in asking me about myself as they are in telling me things. I don't think I've been asked quite so many things before, some of which I'd never really considered properly in the past. But now I find myself having to consider new things, having to give form to what were before this only vague notions that I was only viscerally aware of.

In some ways I've changed. Or rather, I have remained the same, but I've changed how I present myself and how I deal with the people I know.

While I love hanging out with them almost all the time, I think we have, on a number of occasions, gone overkill with our time spent together. I mean, there is such a thing as spending too much time with people :P. I even sort of lost my temper at one point, which was the day after the hike I think. We'd been hanging out with each other about four consecutive days at that point--4 consecutive days of poking fun at each other, although I seem to be the main target most of the time. Usually I'm fine with it, but after four consecutive days (including a 3-hour hike of almost non-stop good-natured ribbing), well... I'm not made of ice.

And today, haha, well... like I said, it's the first day in a long time that I sat around by myself and did nothing, and it felt GREAT. I really needed the rest and time alone. The coming week will theoretically give me more time to rest to, as 1/3rd of our trio (me + the two J's) will be away, and he's the one who usually bugs the other two of us to hang out. So yeah.

Love them to death, but right now I would really just love to sit around and do nothing :P

So, yeah. The last few weeks of the semester are at hand. I am so excited, but at the same time I'm feeling a bit worried right now because I am aware of just how much work I will have to do in the next 2-3 weeks. I have two group research projects to worry about, and I know I will be obsessing about the writing/editing/proofreading aspects of them. Gah. But I WILL SURVIVE! RAWR!

So hm. Yeah. Snowing outside; beautiful, but I know that after awhile I will get sick of the snow and wish for spring. Ah well, I might as well enjoy it while I still can.

I guess that's all I can write about right now. Time for pictures! They are somewhat in chronological order :P with a few misplaced ones.

Read on...

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Keep on Thinking

Yes I am aware that I need to post a significant update soon. This isn't that update. I've been kinda busy lately, somehow I feel like I hardly have time for anything (although actually, I do). So yeah.

I'll think of something to post soon, okay. Sigh.

It's not that nothing has been going on in my life; I just don't know what I should be writing about. Maybe I'll write a long, random, rambling post soon. And post a picture or two maybe? Hm, we'll see.

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Mess

My room is so unbearably messy right now.

I MUST CLEAN IT BY THIS WEEKEND, or I will be totally sick of being in my own room.

Rawr!

!!UPDATE!!- The room is CLEAN(ER). Oooohyeah. FINALLY.

Read on...

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Halloween Pics, and Then Some Words, and Maybe More Pics

Some pictures first:























So, those are the pictures.

Halloween was, in a nutshell, ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Wow I seem to use those words a lot whenever I'm describing a great event. But it really was a whole lot of fun. A lot of people gave Jae and me amused looks whenever we walked by in our sumo costumes. Omg. SUMO. I am in love with the costume, although the zipper on mine malfunctioned so we had to use duct tape to seal the suit. Ah well. It worked.

I'm too lazy to describe everything that went on :P But basically, we were on the 2nd floor of the Elks Club, people were walking around in all sorts of costumes, Nico and his friend Kevin were DJing, and, yeah. You get the idea. It was dark and clubby (as is appropriate), and a bit too hot and stuffy for my liking; I was wearing 2 layers of clothes underneath my sumo costume, and because all the openings (neck, sleeves, legs) on the costume had elastic, air couldn't really get out. And the puny little fan blowing air into the costume was only blowing in warm air anyway.

But my hands-down favorite part of the night was the COSTUME COMPETITION! Jae and I signed up for it, hahaha.

Basically, contestants are given a number (from 1-30); you can compete either solo or in a pair/group. We got number 8. When the competition was about to begin, they told everyone to clear a huge circle in the middle of the dancefloor. And then they began to read out your numbers, one by one, and you have a minute or two to perform and dance in the middle. I went, "oh shit," or something along those lines, when I found out.

Okay, so we now needed a plan of attack. I thought, "we should dance back to back so our stomachs face the crowd." He added that we should then turn around and dance face to face. And then tango.

Yes, you read that right; tango.

He was just like ">:) follow my lead." So we kinda practiced the moves a bit, rotate out, rotate in, rotate.. somewhere (I have no idea what the proper terminology is by the way), and dip. Yes dip. I got the girl's part because I can't tango and, well, yea. Sigh.

Soon enough, Nico, on the mic, goes, "No. 8, MAH BOYS JAE AND HISHAM!!!!"

Here. We. GOOOOO!!!!!!!




LOL. Okay sorry I only have 2 pics and no videos. Omg, it was so much fun though, we just got out there and went CRAZY!!! And the tango went well! I think. I was so afraid of screwing up though... but it would've been funny if I'd just tipped over and crashed on the ground.

Yea. It was awesome!

So, then we made it into the top 5 finalists. Later on they had the 5 finalists do small jigs again. Which was so much fun, haha.



AND WE GOT THIRD PLACE! WHOOHOO! Well the prize is only like worth $10 but who cares, we WON THIRD PLACE! Uh I have to say that it was Jae's idea to do the sumo costumes, so it's kinda his fault that we got third place, so yeah XD



WHOO! HAHA!

Uh but we lost to this guy in drag with a really bad wig, who got first place. He was so funny though, he was totally in character and teased the crowd when they called out his number during the judging sessions; there's a pic of him somewhere above, he's the Japanese guy with a blond wig in a cheongsam.

So yea. BOOYA!

Hm, after that Jae and I were kinda pooped because it had been so warm underneath our sumo suits all night long, so he took his off first, and then I took mine off soon after. We hung out with June, Carolyn, and the rest outside of the clubbing room for awhile, where it was much cooler and less stuffy. We decided to go to Denny's afterwards, so at about 1 am I went home with my brother and took a shower. Then at around slightly past 2 am they called and off to Denny's we went! :)









We were so hungry and absolutely exhausted. It was fun though. The food was great. Talked a lot about random crap. So yea, after awhile we all went back to my place for a big ol' sleepover; everyone kinda fell asleep really fast (except for me) because we were all exhausted.

So yea; that was my Halloween night. Bwaha.

It was really awesome and so much fun; I have no idea how I'm gonna top what I did this year. At least I'm gonna have a whole year to think about it. I can't wait.

I loved the Halloween party, and I love my friends. They rule! :) Totally made the night special, haha.

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