Argh! AIM is not being kind to me - it won't let me sign back on. I hope Mike and Marlen realize this and won't be too offended that I mysteriously signed off. Aye, well, I'll have to let them know later.
So while I was desperately trying to reconnect, I decided to read through the various livejournals of my friends and much to my amusement, they mentioned me. As my roomate says, people love to read about themselves. I for one definitely enjoy seeing myself mentioned (I know, I know, big ego). I've been referred to recently as a "cloistered freshman," "a genius little sister," and a "female friend." I think most of them are pretty accurate, though I should tell my sister I'm not quite a genius...
I found out a while ago what my costume will be for Dancer Symposium - Purple Cowgirls is the theme...I'm not sure how I feel about that, though it probably won't be so bad. Now that I think of it, I haven't worn that color in years, my wardrobe seems to consist of only black, red, green and white. This will certainly be an interesting experience. I have to say, I'm very curious as to how my classmates will react to the dance which is quite risque.

It's dreary today. Really, it is. It's not just me. There's rain and grey skies and cool winds blowing. My jacket was not enough and now my back muscles are all knotted up from trying to keep myself from shivering to pieces.
Other than that, the past couple days have been sleepless but good. The teachers were very happy with the work I produced for Monday - ironic since I spent only a fraction of the time I usually do on it. I really must get to work on the rest of what I have due tomorrow. Perhaps a "power nap" will help.

I have let this weekend's work slide for far too long, and soon I will be paying for it dearly. However, I will start it off with another entry.
Yesterday, I went with another friend of mine and he took me exploring parts of Pittsburgh that are very popular, but that I'd never gone to. Why? Because 1) I don't have the time to sit on the bus for an hour, and 2) the intense paranoia I feel when I am far far off campus that I'll be stranded or something. Fortunately, my friend has a car, so we went to the Strip district where all the open markets are and I tried stuffed grape leaves (yum) and had a portabello mushroom sandwich for lunch (yum). O and there was a stand that sold fudge, all sorts of fudge! I got a chunk of blueberry cheesecake fudge and wow was that enjoyable. I can't wait for next semester when there will be a kitchen. The groceries there are super fresh and inexpensive. And there was a pottery shop there with pretty mugs and bowls - expensive ones but pretty nonetheless.
And then we went to the waterfront and visited Barnes and Nobles and then watched Hidalgo which was a pretty good movie. I got him to buy a copy of "The Magic of Recluce" by Modesitt - which I get everyone who's interested in my kind of fantasy novels to buy.
So this added with the fun fun Friday evening just put me into a wonderful mood and I decided I just to procrastinate some more when I got back on campus, and thus I visited my dungeon friends. I think they thought I was a little crazy because I was in such a good mood. Then I went with some of them to the MTC and watched Red Dragon which I thought was a good movie as well - a little disgusting, though. I'm glad neither of the movies I watched yesterday made me sad, but I saw a preview in the theater that looked like it will - namely Troy. Thinking about fallen ancient cities, an end of an era, it's just sad.
In any case, I'm off to a big day of work.

Well, I had a most interesting evening where I spent I'd say a good five and a half hours in good conversation with a friend. We started off at the UC, stretching and then proceeded to go climb a tree, a very high tree, the best I've ever climbed, though, being short, Lux had to give me a boost. We stayed there for an hour and a half and just talked about things like what language is, what words mean, what we're trying to find in life, in ourselves. He's a very inspirational person, though my lack of sleep this week was beginning to catch up to me around 11 om and I couldn't quite keep up with everything. We listened to a lot of music, some really nice stuff. I must say that he has really good taste in music. He left a little while ago, kind of tired too. I hope he'll be alright driving home...

Good morning world. I really should be getting to bed, as tomorrow will be a busy day, but instead, I procrastinate on procrastination by writing another blog entry. I shall list things I have to do - tonight, I will finish studying for a physics quiz. Tomorrow morning I shall have to wake up early and purchase a book I have not yet bought for class, and read it during physics and then take the physics quiz that I shall never be prepared for. After my first round of classes, I shall go and print out my renderings for studio and then skip lunch and go back to my room to sleep. Then I will go to studio and hope that the teachers are at least somewhat satisfied with my work, which is probably, yet again, too complex. Afterwards, I will go to the woodshop and attempt to use the table saw - most likely I won't get to because there are some many others who want to use it. Then I have a - well, I guess I'll call it a social meeting with someone I met towards the beginning of the year at a sparring group and just recently re-met. I look forward to talking to him as I read his livejournal and he has a great deal of interesting insights into this world - something I could only wish for. But then, I think that for now, I'm content to live in this world, on the surface. When I have more freedom, I will begin to look beneath the shadowed waves and see what lies shining on the bottom.

I shall be pulling another all nighter, I think. Big surprise. It is kind of upsetting though that my birthday was spent powerwalking to the point of shin-splints, or even full out running. I'll bet that looked wierd, but I had a lot of stuff to do. And sadly, we didn't finish everything on time. I hope Laura Lee won't be too disappointed with us. I just think it's too much to ask for. Sure we didn't have to make as much as people did last year, but this year they made us coordinate with the other studios and the issue with that is that the information takes a long time to get around...I'm horrifically far behind on my homework. I'd best get to it. As for celebrating my birthday? It will have to wait for better days.

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me! I'm now a ripe old age of 19! Do I feel any different? Well, I feel abnormally warm today...I'm in a tank top and shorts right now and it's still very toasty. I think there's something wrong with me, as Rachel is curled up into a tight ball under her really thick blankets...
Spent the day running all over the place looking for people and checking up on others. People are really starting to appreciate me as project manager I think, or rather, they appreciate the fact that I constantly check up on them - as opposed to the other project managers who have been relatively unseen. Though they have been doing just as much work as me, they just haven't made themselves visible. Ah well, something learned - physical presence goes a long way.
Hmm, what else has been going on? I spent a couple of hours in the MTC with my guyfriends watching "Spirited Away." The best part of that movie? The train ride - beautiful scenery. I always give that scene my full attention.

Today was interesting. I went out with a friend today, a nice fellow who graduated from CMU a few years back. We went to Gullifty's and had dinner and ended up staying and chatting for a really long time. I think we totaled nearly 3 hours of good conversation. That was nice, I haven't really had a chance to talk to someone like that in a long while. Sadly, I forgot to get the CD he was going to lend me when he dropped me off. Oh well, perhaps another time. The game, "Theif," sounds like a whole ton of fun.
I was going to do some physics homework, I was all set to go. But when I got to the good ole' MTC, I found that it had been taken over by some friends of mine and they were watching "Amelie." Sadly, from where I sat, I couldn't really see the subtitles, but fortunately, my french is still pretty good, so I could understand most of it. Lovely movie. It makes me sad though (yes, yet again, I'm a little sad). I think it's because I can identify with Amelie, where I like to make people happy but I don't want to be exalted, but in the end, no one will know, and I will be forgotten. For her though, someone finds her and it's a happily ever after ending. I don't think that's what is in store for me, and so the movie makes me sad.
My favorite lines in the movie are from the talking photograph, from when Nino asked if he knew Amelie, and the photos say, "Tu la connais toujours. Dans tes reves." Beautiful. There's something there, I can't pinpoint it exactly, but it's there.

O to be a project manager...I can't fathom why anyone would want this job. I didn't want it. I got drafted and now there's contention in the ranks and I don't know what to do. It's funny how some people think we have a really hard job and others say that we aren't doing our part (us being the project managers). I, frankly, am at a loss as to what course to take. I think we're not really supposed to do any of the work, just make sure that everyone else does it, and we just step in to answer questions and when arguments come up, we're supposed to mediate - or at least, this is what my professors led me to believe. I don't know, maybe I'm already doing too much, or truly not enough. Getting everyone in the same room is no easy task though, that's for sure, so I have to wait till studio tomorrow to organize everyone for the weekend. Hopefully the professors won't be too displeased that it took us this long. I think the worst part of being the project coordinator is when your friends that have to work under you are displeased with you...it really hurts.
On the bright side, working with my coordinator partner has been interesting. I don't think I spoke more than a sentence to him ever before this project, but we had a very nice conversation about asian institutions (corporal punishment is effective, you have to admit - it's just not very nice) and good god, he's smart...

Busy day today, organizing things for studio. I think tomorrow promises to be busier, though my partner in the project seems to believe otherwise. My roomie and I got the room that we wanted for next year - apartment! Woohoo!
However, I feel inexplicably sad right now. Sad and alone. And unaccomplished. Why is it that I can cheer others up, but I always leave feeling sad in the end? And outside?

Argh! I am just so annoyed right now. No, not annoyed. Angry! Why? Stubborn people, or rather, a stubborn person. If you want to know my reasons for thinking something, don't keep trying to refute them. I'm not here to argue, I don't like arguing. Don't ask me for my opinions if you're not going to listen to them and try to twist them so you can have things your way.

Hullo! I am now back in Pittsburgh alive and well after a harrowing plane trip. I have learned to never fly in small planes because the wind tosses them and my poor stomach everywhere and the engine makes everything vibrate so it feels like your bones are going to rearrange themselves. And now back to Pittsburgh where the room is always cold and the outdoors is somewhat dreary - or at least, it was yesterday. Today was quite nice and for studio we went to the Southside for the next phase of our project, and we took pretty pictures of an area that we're supposed to redesign. The teachers set me up as one of the project coordinators supposedly because I'm a shy person (really, why do people always think I'm shy?) and they think I can handle the responsibility. It's nice that they think that I can be responsible, but I don't think I really am. There's just a lot of luck...O well, they'll figure that out eventually. In any case, so far it seems like I'm not being particularly responsible and the other person in my studio is handling all the work. Hopefully he'll let me do something so I don't feel like a total slacker.
Other than that, I went to a really great lecture given by Hani Rashid who runs Asymptote, an architecture and design firm in New York City (www.asymptote.net if you want to check it out). Really interesting work and the methodology was very clear and concise, something I hope I can do in a couple of years. I think I'm almost there, method wise - there's just something in my head that isn't working right, a wall of some sort. Sometimes I can get my brain into the right mindset, but most days, my thoughts just don't really come together. I just need one really great epiphany and it will be...well, smoother sailing.

Another vacation has come to an end, and tomorrow at the not-so-bright-because-the-sun's-not-up-yet and early hour of 5am, I will leave my house yet again for another two months of intense learning fun. I wish that I could say that I'll miss being home, but I've come to equate it as a place of rest now, and that's not good because I'm a workaholic. My mum and I came to that conclusion while we were out driving. Apparently when I'm on break, I always get really bad headaches and I'm always really tired, but when I'm working, I feel just fine - well, of course I'm always somewhat sleepy, but that's understandable, as I don't get to sleep that much when I'm busy. I hope this doesn't mean I'll get ulcers when I'm older...

I spent most of this evening chatting with some really old friends, some who I haven't seen in years. It's fun to reminisce, and a little sad, to think of how things have changed and people have drifted over the years. Everything changes and too often, people don't look back. It sounds stupid, but I can't wait till I get to go to one of those high school reunion things, just to see how people have changed.

While I was brushing my teeth last night I noticed there were quite a few faint scratch lines left all over the underside of my forearms from carrying raw lumber around the woodshop. I thought, much to my amusement, that they looked like the leftover reminders of a very wimpy suicide attempt. I proceeded to entertain myself with the notion of suicide, being that brushing teeth can be extremely boring. I don't think too highly of the act of suicide myself. It's a very selfish thing to do, for the most part, because when one kills oneself, he leaves behind a lot of people who cared for him and they feel much pain from his sudden departure. I don't think I'd ever want to kill myself - it looks painful and I don't want others to be too sad because of me. Though, I suppose if one was dying of a terminal illness and was suffering badly, I wouldn't blame the person for ending his life.

Well, I made it back home safely with all of my luggage intact, thank god. It was an interesting ride out of LGA listening to my dad cussing out all the drivers on the road.
So far for spring break, I've visited the high school, gone out with a couple of friends and gone to a cheerleading competition. Yes, a cheerleading competition. I didn't go for the cheers though, no, don't worry. I went for the dance teams. I realized over the school year that what I love the most isn't even violin, it's dancing. I like watching it, I like doing it. I miss it incredibly and the one meager hour I get a week just isn't enough.
I also realized that constant dissatisfaction will always plague me. There's a someone who I'm particularly angry with - well, not angry, more frustrated, for being a patronizing disagreeable person. Yes, this part of the entry sounds odd and disjointed, I know. I just can't stop thinking about this person - no, none of that lovey dovey crap that people are all spewing these days. I don't believe in any of that love at first sight junk. It's just the patronizing! No patronizing, no pity! Tell the truth, I don't care if I feel hurt.
In any case, I'm going to NY tomorrow, so I should go to bed.

O its that time again, yes the time to travel, and boy do I hate traveling. There's just way too many anxieties involved with it. I do believe that it's one of the most difficult things for me to cope with, having to worry about getting to the airport on time and making sure that everything I bring actually makes it to the destination with me. And poor daddy has to go to the city at 5 in the morning for a training session and wait around for me until I arrive at 7. Poor daddy, I'm sorry. So I just packed up some of my clothes and most of it is dirty laundry...how disgusting...but I'll just have to deal with it I suppose.
So what am I looking forward to for spring break? Well I am definitely looking forward to being in New York for a few days. We're going to Flushing and staying with some cousins and going to Manhattan for a day. That should be most fun. And oh! I'm back just in time for the high school dance team competition. I don't even know most of the girls on the team now, but I shall root for them all the same. I miss dancing regularly. Once a week at 10pm is just a little too odd. Anyway, I must collect my last vestiges of work so that I can go home worry free tomorrow.