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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Interview No. 1!!

Going for my first job interview EVER in about 8 hours from now.

I'm absolutely TERRIFIED okay, and I'm totally pessimistic about it right now.

But I'll still try to do the best that I can. I hope I don't stutter and fumble whenever they ask me questions. My resume sucks horse manure, but at the end of the day I hope I can impress them with my (somewhat meager) communication skills. Also, if I heard correctly over the phone, I'll be interviewed by two people at once. Joy.

Realistically though, I don't expect to get the job. I'm surprised they even called me in for an interview; basically my job application said that I had no job experience at all, and the position they're looking to fill kind of requires some amount of experience.

Heh. It's gonna be an experience though, whether it's good or bad. Will update about it sometime soon.

RAWR!

!!UPDATE!!- Okay well, I am honestly too lazy to write an in-depth analysis of what happened during my interview, so I'll just give the main points okay :P Sorry, haha.

1) It lasted almost an hour.
2) I had two interviewers who tagteamed and took turns to ask me questions.
3) I gave good answers for some, totally flubbed others.
4) The two available coordinator positions are Assistant Food Coordinator and Children's World coordinator, so they asked me questions about food and games.
5) Watching them scribble notes furiously after you've said something kind of deflates your confidence
6) I think I did okay. Not too outstanding but I don't think I bombed it either.
7) I did my best to convey that I REALLY WANT the job, so I hope they got my desirous vibes. Hohoho.
8) RAWR!

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Hati Jadi Salju

I'm exhausted and really should be sleeping right now, but I got this sudden urge to blog. So here I am, on my blog again, trying to make sense of my life right now.

Life in general has actually been pretty amazing this semester. So far, it has been so much more than I expected it would be. Whether this is because of a series of fortunate and unplanned opportunities, or because I have actively been trying to 'live life' more this semester, I don't know. What I do know is that it has been pretty damn wonderful; it's not that I've had tons of fun partying and stuff, it's just that some things have fallen into place quite nicely.

If I had been asked over the summer whether I was truly looking forward to this semester, I might have said yes, but internally my answer would have been a resounding no. I wasn't in the right state of mind last semester, nor was I any better during summer. I think most of my friends know why, now. I'm glad that things didn't end up how I thought they would.

Perhaps somewhere along the way I managed to find the resolve to finally assert who I really am into this kind of pseudo-life I'd created around myself. It wasn't easy, but hey, I finally managed to reach this state of preparedness and willingness to rise up to the challenge. I may not be all about sunshine and joy nowadays, but the fact remains that my issues no longer trouble me as much as they used to.

I think the most important indicator of this, for me, is how much I think about things in the silence of the night when all the days activities are said and done. Because it is hard to sit and obsess and lash out in your mind when you're too busy to do it. I find that my fears speak up the most when there is nothing else in the environment to mask their disturbing whispers.

I may still hear them nowadays, but I think overall I've definitely managed to shrug them off a bit more effectively.

What intrigues me the most is how much I've changed this semester. And, in regards to that, I find that the entire world has just turned a shade better for some reason. Does the world change when you change? Because as most of us know, there exists the idea that the world may not just be one specific reality, but that it is perceived in many different ways by the multitude of people out there. So, in that vein, did my internal change affect the world around me too?

I suppose that the biggest leap forward that I've made was when I decided to start trusting the people around me. I had my friends, but even then I never really opened up to most of them. Sometime at the beginning of this semester, a part of me I never knew existed bullied its way to the surface and made me realize that I not only wanted to trust people, but also that I really could trust them. I'd never really felt that before this. I never felt that I had the capability to trust, so I never did. After all, how could anyone do something they didn't feel they could do in the first place?

Only physical walls are easier to take down than to build. Emotional walls are the exact opposite; they go up much faster than they go down.

And, well, fortunately for me, I have not yet experienced anything that would make me regret that decision - not yet, at least. I am optimistic about it, but nowhere near naive. I realize that things may not always go well; that is a reality I am willing to accept, because one cannot change their entire mindset in one go, can they?

I think that one of the greatest and most under-appreciated delights of a person's life is to be surprised - in a good way - by the people around you; to have your cynical notions about humans and human nature fade into insignificance (even if only among your friends and loved ones); to be proved wrong time and time again when you expect the worse to happen or when you expect that good would never happen; to discover, even if only in a limited scope, the inherent goodness of people you know and will come to know even better in the future.

After all, it may be hard to tear down your walls, but it is much more of a strain to have to maintain them unnecessarily when you don't have to. Some people do need these walls; I am not too idealistic to suggest otherwise. But in the context of my life, I think I kept them up for a bit too long, and after awhile I just balked at the pressure. Now I feel some degree of relief, some degree of hope, some degree of regret at not having done something about it sooner.

I am, however, inclined to still belief that something bad will happen. But the difference is that I don't really care when and how it happens now; what matters is that I truly lived life and enjoyed it. Ups and downs are naturally occurring events in life, so why should I worry unnecessarily about something that is natural anyway?

So, yea. I guess the overarching point that I'm trying to make here is that my life has changed, in a myriad of positive ways, partly because of the opportunities that have been presented to me, and partly because I finally decided to stop feeling sorry for myself all the time and decided to do something about it with the opportunities that were presented to me.

That, and because I have been surprised rather wonderfully, over and over again, by the people in my life.

As for the title of this post? It means 'heart turns to snow' or 'heart becomes snow;' in this case it doesn't mean that the heart turns cold, but rather that it is soothed or calmed.

Just so you know.

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Note:

Fuck I need to stop obsessing over grades, wtf.

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When All You See in a Masterpiece is That One Perceived Flaw, Not the Beauty

Fuck this. It's that time of the month/cycle again.

[insert long, angst-ridden, emo post here about life and other things]

Honestly, I wonder why every now and then I just need to emo. And this time it's not because something bad happened; things are actually going good, but my feelings keep making a mountain out of a molehill.

Gah too lazy to write a long post. Suffice to say, things are good but I still don't feel good. Which sucks. SUCK IT UP PLEASE, RAWR!!!

Emoman, OUT!

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Weekend Again

Don't really have anything to write here actually, haha. Just felt like it was time to update, so please bear with this totally inane post.

So it's the end of yet another weekend. My weekends have seemed pretty routine so far; movies and hanging out with people, with some variation in terms of activities.

I really should start taking more pictures. Memories are great, but even they become fuzzy after awhile. I want to remember clear moments, not general impressions of what happened.

So Teena and Lexi came over and we watched Norbit and Daddy's Little Girls. Nothing to rave about the movies; they were good in an absolutely okay way. Norbit was a bit too long, in my opinion, and Daddy's Little Girls didn't have much oomph behind it.

Soon after, Jae came over, Teena and Lexi left, Lexi came back to hang out with Nico, and Jae and I played the Wii until 4-5 am. Funnily enough, we've done this exact same thing for like 3 weekends now. Wonder if it's gonna be a routine thing; I don't think it will, but we'll see. We just hang out, without any real purpose or goal to the activity; it's actually quite relaxing, because I don't have to be as involved, as, say, hanging out with a bunch of friends. So yeah.

We've kinda become really close friends lately (or at least I think so?), and like he says, we 'click', which is kinda weird because I totally did not expect that to happen, haha. We're not very much alike, I think. But I guess as long as the chemistry is there, it's good. I also happen to 'click' with his girlfriend, who is really interested in stuff like politics, economics, and religion; she loves to talk about those topics. So that's that? It's good that I've made some new great friendships though. So I'm thankful. :)

Also, Bridge Pizza in Missoula is awesome!!! Had it last night and for lunch today, our toppings were chicken, meatball, and mushrooms... omg I want some right now. omfggggggggggggggggggg okay I cannot think about it now.

So yea that's all for now. Babai.

!!UNIMPORTANT UPDATE!!: Omfg I managed to finish my COMM 422 thought questions on the readings (65 pages for this week) before Tuesday itself!!! Tuesday is when I have COMM 422 by the way. Omfg, this is a first for me! Or second? Can't remember. Anyway, the answers for the thought questions amount to 5 pages this week, which is... fewer than usual. Not that I'm complaining. Took me forever to do wtf. YAY.

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Random Literary Thoughts

I wonder if it's a good idea to write fantasy based on your life and the people around you. Not that you use them as is, exactly how they really are, but you populate your fantasy world with characters inspired by your friends and other people you know.

Also, on a rather unrelated topic, I find that writing comes naturally to me. I can look at written passages and correct certain sentences, but if you asked me why I made those corrections, I really wouldn't be able to answer you. I wonder if it's good that my writing skills are intuitive; I instinctively know how to write well, but I don't know how to explain the specifics.

Sigh.

Third random thought; I write and argue things well but only within an established framework, it seems. I need to start thinking out of the box. Geez. That's why I didn't get an A for my COMM 422 research paper; my paper was very well-written and well-argued, said my professor, but it was not very original in its ideas. Sigh.

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The Looking Glass Self, and Friends

I realized the other day that I haven't written anything too serious here for awhile, which given my reputation is a problem, so today I decided to remedy it.

No, this is not an academic paper, so don't fall asleep on me now!

I have a really bad habit of compartmentalizing my various circles of friends. What I mean by that is that I have more than one circle of friends, and I don't like it when those circles of friends interact/mix with each other with me around at the same time.

The thing is, I act differently with every single circle of friends. While most people would say "hey, I do that too!" I think I take it do it to a greater degree, perhaps almost to the point of deception.

Let's just say that image management is big with me. I cannot be the type of person who can act however I want to and say "fuck it" to the world. I am not the type of person who will tell people "I am who I am, take it or leave it." And I have this insatiable desire to please or to not disappoint my friends.

So I will adjust my personality to fit with whichever group of friends I'm with. That is unless managing my image with that particular person/group would require me to act too much unlike myself. Then I just stop hanging out with that person/group.

In other words, who I am and how I behave at any particular time depends on which circle I'm hanging out with at that particular moment. I say "who I am" in addition to "how I behave" because not only my behavior changes, but I find that my thoughts and mental impulses tend to get skewed as well.

Li Sze, in all her awesomeness, mentioned an actual theory for this. It's called "The Looking Glass Self," which according to Wikipedia (which may or may not be trusted) has three main assumptions:

1. We imagine how we must appear to others.
2. We imagine the judgment of that appearance.
3. We develop our self through the judgments of others.

That, unfortunately, is a major part of how I develop my sense of self.

I tend to second-guess the progress and minutiae of my friendships. I always expect the worse to happen, so I adjust myself to ensure that nothing goes wrong. I don't know how to trust people easily. I'm so used to putting up walls so that no one can see the so-called "real me," which I hope I myself get to see one day. I guess I'm afraid of the possibility that a friend might, well, cut off the friendship should they find that there is something unforgivably unlikeable about me.

Now back to the circles of friends. Because I am so obsessed with managing my image, having two or more circles in the same place at once kind of scrambles my auto-image management system. Wow I sound like a robot. So anyway, because I find that I can't reposition myself in the overlapping parts of the circle easily, I withdraw a little and become more guarded with my behavior.

It's not that I change entirely though; I work with the same core values all the time, but with different interpretations is all. My values are the Constitution, so to speak, while my mind are the government and the judiciary. It's all about the interpretation and the application of the same core values for different ends.

So when two circles are there at the same time, it's like being pulled by two different forces at the same time from opposing directions; they kind of negate each other. I don't know who to be when I imagine the judgments of the different circles on who I am, and find that I cannot accommodate both perceived judgments simultaneously. I find that the interpretation of one over the other will compromise both, so I don't interpret at all. I withdraw.

But I wonder though; is it an acceptable thing or is it tantamount to deception? It's not that I want to deceive my friends or anything. I just have this insane desire to please them. I find it hard to say no. And I don't want to disappoint them or make them look at me in a totally different light. It is much easier to manage my image when I know exactly which image I should maintain.

It's confession time; if you are my friend, I have probably been dishonest (sometimes quite strongly so) about stuff at various points in our friendship. I don't really tell outright lies, I just work with rhetoric and bend the truth. I'm sorry. It's not about deception, but rather the maintenance of image based on who I think you would want me to be, or what I think you would want me to say. It does not necessarily mean that you actually want me to be a certain way; I'm the one who finds this need to manage my image.

Sometimes, when friends find out that you're not quite the person they thought you were, they start to second-guess your entire history together. "Did this gesture have a meaning I missed? Did that sentence mean something entirely different than what I thought? Was he/she even sincere when he/she expressed that opinion?"

I don't want that to happen. I don't want our past to be poked and prodded and reexamined from a new angle; it is almost ironic, because I'm the one who second-guesses the future of my friendships. I guess that's why I think it's unfair of me to have all these doubts. I'm the one who doesn't know how to trust people. I'm the one who expects the worst of everything. I don't know why this is so, but I just do.

But I want to change it. I mean, yes I will still manage my image, yes I won't be too optimistic about anything, but I also want to have more faith in my friends. I want to be able to believe that a person is my friend because they saw something in me that they appreciated which had nothing to do with whatever image it is that I maintain.

I don't want to wonder about the intentions of my friends, or why they decided to remain as my friends in the first place. Friendship, I think, doesn't deserve to be analyzed and dissected logically. I'd rather just have fun and enjoy the moment, and not worry about the whys and what-ifs. I'd rather allow myself to open up and just trust the people around me, even if it means that I might get hurt in the future should something happen.

So, yea. I exemplify the "Looking Glass Self" indeed.

Well, there are reasons why I'm suddenly so interested in this. Last semester I was pretty antisocial; I put up walls and such. But now I find that I've been making a lot more meaningful friendships, and added one or two circles of friends. So I find myself socializing and hanging out with people a lot more nowadays, which is extremely fun but sometimes taxing. And being on a small-ish campus like this means that it is inevitable that the circles will overlap at certain points in time.

I have also made a few really good friends whom I've been hanging out with a L O T. Like a L O T. Maybe too much; I don't know. And being the idiot I am, my old fears and doubts resurfaced and I began to over think these friendships. I began to wonder if they were sincere and if these friendships are worth maintaining, especially with one of them. I thought, "why would this person want to hang out with me?" based on what I knew about that person.

But I found that I had perhaps misread or misjudged that person. My fears, at least so far, have remain unsubstantiated. My friends have turned out to be more amazing than I expected. One of them in particular surprised me in terms of the sincerity and eagerness on their part. It was a pleasant, if not AWESOME, surprise when I realized that my concerns were unfounded. Which means that I feel kind of bad about expecting the worst of them. It was unfair of me to do so. Of course, I might be wrong now as well and my friendships turn out to be crapshitbad, but I don't care about that anymore. I just want to have fun and enjoy them at the moment.

So I'm happy with how my life is right now. It's pretty much on track in most ways. I'm really enjoying my days a lot more now. While I do like alone time (which I had plenty of last semester), hanging out with friends is definitely worth it.

Right now, what I want most is to enjoy my university life and my new--and hopefully long-lasting--friendships (without jeopardizing my grades).

I guess with that I'll end this in-depth self-reflection post. It IS pretty long, if I do say so myself. I think most of you would not have read the whole thing. I don't think I would have read the whole thing. So uh, yeah.

That is all for today. I need sleep. Been hanging out with friends too much this past weekend that I didn't get enough sleep. So BAI.

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New Title and Awesome Weekend

!!UPDATE!! - Pictures up.. not much, but better than nothing? No bowling pics though :/

Warning: typos and grammatical mistakes everywhere; so exhausted right now but I feel like posting, so here we go.

So as most of you may have noticed, I have a new title up. Finally! What do you guys think about it? More importantly, what do you think it says? Li Sze's guess was pretty accurate in regards to what it meant, so yay for that :) I'm quite confident that it's pretty much self explanatory. It's not a permanent title yet though, unless I decide that I like it enough to be so.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, time to gush about my weekend. I know that I've been lazy with updating. Sorry you guys. But I'm feeling pretty chatty right now, so go count your blessings because Hishy's finally in the mood to type a R E A L L Y long post.

So on to my weekend.

It was FREAKIN AWESOME!

It was probably one of the best weekends I've had here (or anywhere else, for that matter) so far.

Saturday morning I was up bright and early (6 am) to help out with the International Student Association(ISA) float for the homecoming parade. I wore a Chinese outfit, as you will see at the bottom of my post where I've stashed all my pictures.

Most of us were pretty tired that morning; I mean, who wakes up to do work at 7 am on a Saturday? It was fun, though. Almost everyone wore something cultural, or something just plain cool. It was also FREEZING cold that morning; I think most of us weren't too excited about the idea of being on a float out in the cold weather.

Faye was wearing a pink sari. I have no idea how she survived the cold because she didn't wear a jacket or anything. Rika wore a kimono, which was awesome. Leslie wore a pink glam dress, haha. Felicity wore an outfit in Ghana's colors (green and yellow). Um. Adina and Elif were in traditional garb too. Uh I think I must've forgotten some other people but oh well. You can probably match the names to the people in the pictures at the end of the post, haha.

So at around 9.15-9.30 am we took off from the International House and headed downtown to get into position with the parade.

There were 100++ floats/groups/performers in all. Well, they weren't those huge elaborate floats that you see in huge parades, but rather smaller trailer-ish ones. There were a lot of them though. We were number 30 in a huge procession of floats + performances.

The parade began at 10 am. We had a Celtic music bagpipe band right in front of us, haha. I can't remember what was behind us; I think we left them behind.

In a nutshell, the people of Missoula are ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! Omfg, they're so friendly like you wouldn't believe. I mean, here we are, some random international students on our ISA float, and all these people were smiling and waving and making eye contact with us. A great deal of them were cheering us on. Some yelled out positive stuff, but usually I only managed to catch a word or two because it was so loud with the people plus the music.

Well uh, I do hope they were yelling good things. I mean, I could hear "you are all great big idiots" as "you are all great ijdsadjiasdjias," and think that they yelled something good. And wave at them smiling like idiots. Oh well.

Most of us felt like our hands go numb, as it was absolutely COLD that morning. But the thing is, no one wanted to get into the truck that was pulling our trailer to warm themselves up. The atmosphere was just too amazing for us to want to get into the car, sort of 'away' from the crowds. My mouth was NUMB and SORE from smiling and yelling out greetings to the crowd. My hands felt so cold that I could hardly feel them. It was the same with everyone else. And yet we all braved the cold just to enjoy the moment and cheer along with the residents of Missoula.

I have to say, the sight of Missoulians smiling and cheering was pretty heartwarming. The kids were lined up in front, partly in the hopes of getting some candy, partly because so they could get a better view. It was also quite funny when we went by the seniors' center; they were all sitting in a line right in front, all bundled up, smiling and waving as well. Sigh. It's hard to not feel cheerful with all these smiling faces, young and old, who also braved the cold so they could show their support for the community.

Sigh. It was so amazing. I couldn't stop grinning the whole time. I think everyone needs to do that at least once in their life. I know they weren't cheering just for us. But you just have to be there to really feel a sense of community, a sense of belonging. This isn't merely a group of people who happen to live in the same geographical area; they are a united people who demonstrate a great degree of solidarity in the community.

Well, I could go on and on about how amazing it was, but I guess you just had to be there. It was an absolutely powerful and enjoyable experience. This small town proves that size doesn't matter.

After the parade, we were all pretty much on a high. Had some pizza at the International House; the general mood was one of satisfaction and pride. We did face some problems in the morning--we even thought that we might not be able to enter the parade after all due to technical problems--but in the end it all worked out. So for us to have made it after all and experience that was wonderful in so many ways.

People started leaving once the temporary high started ebbing away. It was only then that we realized how extremely EXHAUSTED we all were. Some of us had worked on the decorations for the past two evenings, and then been up at 6 - 6.30 am on Saturday morning just to put the finishing touches and dress ourselves up in cultural/cool clothes. Everyone had gone home by around midday. I myself went back to nap because I was so exhausted. But it was the good kind of exhaustion, the result of a productive and special day.

Woke up sometime later. Can't remember when, exactly. Haha. And then I went BOWLING at 9.30 pm! Yay! Jamie and his cousin came to pick me up at my place, in his messy car. Haha. Don't care though, a car is a car, and it's great that he didn't mind picking me up. There were 9 of us total (we came in 3 cars...), so we took two lanes. I was on Team USA + 1 Malaysian, and the 3 Japanese + 1 Taiwanese were on Team Asia. Don't ask me why, I was away when they decided on that. So yea I was with Team USA....

Bowling was fun. Haha. We all did pretty badly on the first round. I didn't even hit 100, haha.

But the 2nd round was AWESOME! It was funny; apparently it was disco night. So they turned off the boring white lights and switched on the strobe/nightclub type of lights instead. Miraculously, our game improved after that!! I even managed to get 143 on my second game! Team USA totally pwned Team Asia! Bwahahahhaha. Our names were pretty funny/weird too.

Our team had Jamie Danger (real name Jamie somethingelse), Sammit (real name Sam), Thunder Pants (real name Caitlin/Caty; she was in my Creative Writing class last semester), Hiiissshhaaam (real name Hisham.... ya I was away when they entered my name), and Eva Danger (real name Eva somethingelse). Team Asia had Akira, Mari, Marina, and Shu Min (I hope I'm getting the names right...). So yeah. I don't have pictures though, I didn't take my camera, and I haven't gotten the pictures from Caty yet. So we'll see if I can get some up in the near future. :(

Once we were done with bowling, we went to Denny's at around 11:15 I think. Everyone ate something except for me; I was pretty full from dinner. I don't even remember what I had for dinner, heh. So I just had a hot chocolate. The whole night was so much fun though. Everyone was pretty much in great spirits. I don't know, the whole weekend seemed to just have an amazing atmosphere attached to it. Seems like no one was feeling down at all.

So I went back in Caty's car to pick Jae up at campus, and she dropped us off at my place. Jae wanted to hang out that night, and I was in a great mood, so I told him "why not." I was SUPER exhausted but I did NOT want the day to end, haha. Sleeping was overrated then.

We just hung out I suppose. Watched Fight Club! First time watching it. It's great in a weird way. I don't think it's AWESOME, but it was pretty good. The only nitpicky thing I have to say is that... the title is somewhat misleading. I like the title, don't get me wrong, but somehow it doesn't seem to accurately represent what the movie's about. Oh well. Either than that, it was good, if a bit too long; 2 hours 19 minutes.

My short review of Fight Club is this: it's a unique an interesting movie with a message that it wants to say, but somewhere along the way it become more a show of style over substance. The content was there, but the form kinda overshadowed it. It was great though, Ed Norton and Brad Pitt did an awesome job with their roles. They're so naturally cool that you never get the sense that they're actors in a movie, but rather just... real people in a real story.

Haha, if the day still wasn't long enough, we then decided to play video games. Lol. Adoi. I kicked his ass in Super Smash Brothers. Go me! Also, like wtf finally found someone who has actually played it before and isn't too bad of a player. Everyone else I know hasn't played it before, so I could pwn them so easily. :( Not that I couldn't pwn Jae easily... but at least he was a decent player who didn't die too much. So ya, playing games etc etc until almost 5 am when we decided that maybe... just maybe... it would be a good idea to sleep. Haha.

Woke up sometime past 11 am, decided to go to campus for lunch. Nothing too interesting here. Lunch, then hung out in Jae's room with him and his roommate, Arthur. Short digression; WTF I just realized today that Arthur is taller than me! Wtf! He looks young (which he is... I feel ancient now at 20), so you don't really think of him as being tall. Until you walk next to him. Then your pride is crushed. Okay back to normal programming now.

So yea, nothing too exciting there. Went back. Did nothing. That was basically all that happened over the weekend. I was so exhausted by the time I went back that I was ready to faint. But it was a weekend well-spent.

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In other news, I'm feeling great nowadays. I've been extremely exhausted due to my increased social activity, but it's exhaustion in a good way.

I realized recently that I was sick and tired of putting up emotional walls. I was pretty antisocial last semester, but right now my main goals are just to have fun and establish stronger friendships.

Nowadays I find myself hanging out with my friends a lot more. I guess I don't want to always be the guy who overthinks everything and is too cautious because he never wants to get hurt. But like I was telling Li Sze, I don't want to live like that anymore. I want to live life and its highs and lows.

I know that sometime in the future I might get hurt, for whatever reason. Maybe one day I'll get discouraged by something that happens in one of my friendships. The thing is, the closer you allow yourself to get to people, the more you open yourself up to getting hurt. I was always too aware of this fact before.

Now, well, it's not that I've forgotten it; I just want to have more fun, to have more faith in those I would call my friends. No one could ever live an enjoyable life if all they ever thought about was the possibility of getting hurt. I used to do that, but not anymore.

I have to say, while I'm tired more nowadays simply because I spend more time hanging out with people or doing things, I find that I'm that much happier from it. Been hanging out with 'the family' (also known as Nico's posse) more often. The list; Lauren, Lexi, Teena, June, Lacey, Patricia, Micah, uh.. am I forgetting anyone? Hope not. Well some other peripheral 'family' members. :P Their usual lunch session: 1 pm Mon/Wed/Fri at the exact same place each time, haha. Omg. I'd mention them one by one but macam banyak sangat.

Also been slowly getting to know Jae, his roommate Arthur (shy at first, talkative later on o.O eh, kinda like me haha), and Jae's gf (Sujin, who is also pretty awesome and friendly by the way!) better. Oh and I seem to talk a lot and hang out a lot more with June as well. It's funny how the first time I met her she seemed to be this scary loud girl. Which she still is. But now I realize she's a lot more fun to talk to, hahaha. And like she says, we're totally bff's now :P......

Oh! Also my Lunch at the Round gang! Yea they actually named our lunch sessions. They're always at one of the round tables at the University Center at 11 am Mon/Wed/Fri. Haha. Kym (from Creative Writing last sem, and two of my classes this sem), Caty, Jamie, Ryan, Sam(sometimes), and people with cameos every now and then show up. So yeah. They're really fun, some of them are very much into Japanese/foreign culture, and uh we talk about some crazy stuff. So yeah. I love Lunch at the Round.

So, in a nutshell, I've been having a great deal of fun this semester. The new awesome friendships are really making all the difference. I can honestly say right now that I'm looking forward to all the exciting stuff we'll be doing this semester, and in future semesters. :)

Hm. I guess that's all for now.

Pictures! In no particular order.

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PUTANGINA MO

WTF I JUST LOST 5 PAGES OF WORK WTF... my comp crashed and AUTOSAVE DIDN'T SAVE MY WORK, and the sad thing is MY COMP CRASHED when I pressed ctrl-S to SAVE MY WORK WTF.

In other news: I had an amazing weekend, probably the most AWESOME weekend I've had in the US so far. Will tell you all about it soon.

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