5:27 am. rising sun.

note to self:
stop drinking massive amounts of diet coke at midnight movie premieres.

satc love,
steph

i am freaking out about my future !!! there’s just too much to do!!

i researched dental school admissions stuff today, and i feel defeated.

i would elaborate, but that would defeat my being defeated.

in due time.

-steph

i don’t think my mother has properly used a computer in quite the number of years. today she wanted to tinker around on my laptop and, after 5-7 minutes, she produced this:

“histephanie. How are you doing i loveyou my baby”

this did not come without multiple mutterings of “where’d the letter ‘a’ go?” and “all these letters…” it was very silly and giggly.

so upon paying for my amazon.com shopping cart o’ d.a.t. prep goodies, i realize i’ve lost my debit card. (A SIGN????? IS THAT YOU, GOD?) cool. i’m thinking the punk 16-year-old kids who hang out at sonic took it today after my coconut-cream-pie-shake-detour (the last time i used/saw it). this sucks balls. (it makes me a little uncomfortable having the word ‘God’ be a sentence apart from the word ‘balls’.) i’ve looked everywhere. but then i might be “pulling a stephanie” and freaking out when i’ll find it on the floor later. though i don’t think so.

sigh of defeat,

steph

today i spent a lot of money i do not really have. huh.

first i went to costco and bought the intellectual devotional, which i’m super-excited about. it’s split up into 365 pages, a page and lesson for each day. for the seven days of the week there is a lesson from the seven fields of knowledge: history, literature, music, philosophy, religion, science, math and visual arts. it’s kind of like reading a random wikipedia article a day but the topics are pre-chosen for you, plus it’s toteable and pretty (i love books!). thinking about it it is kind of weird that a book is dictating what i should know about to be cultured, but i pretty much trust it because all the things i’ve seen in the book have been things i’ve covered at one time or another in high school and life but has since fallen out of my head.

i have always been really into knowing everything. i was always a very curious child – i annoyed my fair share of people growing up. one of my favorite childhood gifts was this set of books my cousin got me titled i wonder why…the sky is blue (and other questions about earth), i blink (and other questions about the human body), etc. etc. wow, i kind of wish i still had them…

my answer for everything is food. when i’m sad, when i’m tired, when i’m mad. just now i was scrounging around in my kitchen before landing on a box of cheez-its, and while munching away, i asked myself, “am i really hungry?” the answer, turns out, is no, i am not, but i do have a headache. cheez-its do not make headaches away, i tell myself, as i wipe the crumbs off my mouth and put the box down. the metabolism of my youth is bound to slip through my fingers one day, and until that impending day i am going to try to wean off my unnecessary eating.

i also bought clothes today! i have been reading fashion blogs like no one’s business recently, and seeing pictures of concocted outfits really gets my consumer mind racing. my sister showed me two very cute shirts she bought from old navy yesterday for a total of $8, so naturally i directed her to drive me straight there (hmm, so much for our day of stephanie’s kickass s.a.t. prep course. in my defense we did buy a sat prep book today). i bought a safari-esque cropped khaki jacket, a black-and-white-exotic-print maxi dress (my first attempt at the trend), a nice little white cardigan and a khaki pencil skirt, which i am still torn about. normally, as i am …blessed with flesh in the hip region (less self-demoting than “hip-py”), i stray away from pencil skirts. but then i thought about how lame it is that the only reason i’m not getting this otherwise very cute skirt is a self-created mental hang-up that i have gotten from reading too many fashion magazines, which consequently made my blood boil a little and well, i bought it.

between the last paragraph and this paragraph was a good half hour while i looked up information about the d.a.t. i’m surer than ever about dental school today, so i decided to take the plunge and get the book. reading the reviews for the kaplan guide got me stressin’, and now my amazon.com shopping cart is carrying about $100 of chemistry/biology review books in addition to the dat review book. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

i am now going to work on my life plan. bye.

ahh,

steph

“details in the fabric” – jason mraz ft. james morrison

calm down
deep breaths
and get yourself dressed instead
of running around
and pulling on your threads saying
breaking yourself up

if it’s a broken part, replace it
but if it’s a broken arm, then brace it
if it’s a broken heart, then face it

and hold your own
know your name
and go your own way
hold your own
know your own name
and go your own way
and everything will be fine

hang on
help is on the way
stay strong
i’m doing everything

hold your own
know your name
and go your own way
hold your own
know your and go your own way
and everything, everything will be fine
everything

are the details in the fabric
are the things that make you panic
are your thoughts results of static cling?

are the things that make you blow
hell, no reason, go on and scream
if you’re shocked it’s just the fault
of faulty manufacturing.

everything will be fine
everything, in no time at all
everything

hold your own
know your name
go your own way

are the details in the fabric (hold your own, know your name)
are the things that make you panic
are your thoughts results of static cling? (go your own way)

are the details in the fabric (hold your own, know your name)
are the things that make you panic (go your own way)
is it mother nature’s sewing machine?

are the things that make you blow (hold your own, know your name)
hell, no reason, go on and scream
if you’re shocked it’s just the fault (go your own way)
of faulty manufacturing

everything will be fine
everything in no time at all
hearts will hold

choosing a movie for vietnamese adult relatives who will not understand anything/most things is difficult.  you don’t want to accidentally insult their adult-ness with a disney cartoon movie.  anything with accents is touchy, since they cannot understand a lot of american english as it is.  war movies are an absolute no for, i believe, obvious reasons.  musicals?  because the story is obvious?  but then it’s kind of hard to explain “rent”.  or “moulin rouge”.

tonight my audience was a 80-something-year-old woman who knows absolutely no english.  i settled on “the chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe”, hoping that the christian notes would strike a cord with the very catholic g-ma.  she called the wwii timeframe within the first few scenes, citing the year 1945 and germany and everything.  i was very impressed!  i feel like world history (and the social sciences in general) is often under-emphasized in vietnam.

in other news, i am 20-years-old, and i bought my 3rd amazon.com-categorized-as-self-help book today.

it started when they were all talking in the living room, and i was walking to the kitchen to get a glass of water. “stephanie, i want to talk to you.” and then it comes, the avalanche of phrases like “family duty” and “you’re all your mother has” and “she lives for you” and “she works so hard” and “help your mother out at the store” and “you are the oldest.” things i’ve heard from every spectrum of life (random regulars at my mom’s store, my apparently “evil” godmother, my mom’s best friend, MY BRAIN) since my dad’s left. what am i supposed to do? school is kicking my ass, as is how bank of america charged me $175 in overdraft fees from ONE DAY of five purchases EACH UNDER TEN DOLLARS, as is the looming surgery and its $25,000 bill, as is hearing all these horrible, intricate stories about my family, as is my dwindling hope that this too shall pass, as is pretending to everyone that i’m fine, perfectly okay and normal, that my biggest problem is worrying about getting a b in a class.

being home tears me apart. working at the store, seeing my mother tirelessly running around while kids still in their school uniforms steal black bandannas, tears me apart. telling my dad i’m in town but busy and i can’t have dinner with him tears me apart. having dinner with him when he orders an appetizer because it’s cheaper tears me apart but it’s the only way he can see his own daughter tears me apart. seeing my sister, who, granted, has to live her in this house through everything, run around with her friends and be a bitch to me and my mother tears me apart.

today i fell apart approximately six times. 2 of those times were in public places (the worst).

so it’s my mom, my mom’s best friend co thao, her mom and sister, my mom’s cousin and me.

discussion topics: fear of having disobedient daughter-in-laws, having their children marry vietnamese significant others, weight gain

i keep getting praised for things like my height, my thick hair, and my washing of dishes – and then co thao winks at me, announces “i’m glad i invested early,” and my mom giggles. huh.

two divorced ladies, two widows and me.  the only man in my life is my 1/2 father (it’s not really his fault he’s only 1/2 a father…i know he means well, it’s just hard.)

i read somewhere that 30% of american children don’t sleep in the same house as their fathers.

at mealtime (pho and peanut-covered raw beef with basil), co thao and her sister talk about how they brought balut. my mom then laments about how i don’t know how to eat vietnamese things because she never had time to show me after working so much all these years. and i, not yet knowing what balut is, got defensive. so i just wikipedia-ed it and flashbacked to an episode of that show on food network where the guy travels around the world eating gross things, and i remember how i was exceptionally creeped out by this “balut”. huh. and now there it is, on my kitchen counter.

i have probably 75% less personality than i do normally since i cannot actually speak the language past a third-grader level, but since i can still understand everything i throw in appreciative laughs every so often. each time co thao’s sister looks surprised and asks someone, “does she understand us?”

so i have not posted a real blog in 100 years, which is about how long it took for me to curl up into a stressball and then uncurl back into an actual human being.

is it weird/sad that it felt strange to be typing/writing something in english, and not spanish or portuguese?

i’m having troubles focusing in on and caring about my classes, which is most unfortunate as it is finals week.

we read a story of sandra cisneros’s called “bien pretty” from her book woman hollering creek in my mexican & mexican-american lit class, and i really loved it! now i’m re-reading her book “the house on mango street”. i really love her writing style; it is exceptionally tight and concise, without a single superfluous word. it is the simplest of story-telling, yet the images and emotions she paints and conjures up with her carefully-chosen words are absolutely vivid and clear.

i find myself feeling quite ashamed when acquaintances of mine ask about my summer plans – “so do you have an internship? are you studying abroad?” all i have to offer them is, “oh, i’m just going to be taking a break this summer.” because “healing from oral surgery and organizing my family’s financial and personal problems” is not exactly light conversation. what will medical/dental/grad/? schools think when they see that i spent a summer doing nothing? i hate that i care about what others think. and that i kind of have to care about med/dental/grad/? schools because that is being academically responsible and conscious.

this is quite a depressing kind of schpiel – i do not think it accurate of my actual state of mind right now. i’m pretty happy. if i were a color, i think i’d be a…contemplative, thoughtful but still bright and lively cornflower blue.

last night the roomies and i had a dance party in dresses/heels/bathing suits (weird) which turned into a booty-popping practice lesson, no joke. recent apartment antics also include: us printing out pictures of the internet’s ugliest pigeons to post around secret places in seema’s room (who, you guessed it, has a pigeon phobia), lauren bleeding chocolate and lauren behaving non-lauren-like because i corrupted her for a day! it was the day before her final – usually spent making 1,000,000 flashcards and reading notes over and over, even though she has to only get 33% to get an a – and, instead, we had a 2-hour lunch at cup cafe at hotel congress and wandered park place mall all day, returning at 8 pm-ish.

tengo hambre,
steph

i’m still finding things that have been left untouched/unheard/unseen for a year, and i touch/hear/see it again and immediately i am whisked back to the last time i touched/heard/saw it, and it’s you.  right now it’s you and your storybook digital paintings.