last day

today is my last day at mudd. i am not done with all of my classes yet, but i will just have to submit my exam and project from home. i am still awake right now, packing up the past 4.5 years of my life. i've accumulated quite a few items, so packing is taking me longer than hoped. i can't believe this is it...

false ending.

the past week has been crazy fun. on tuesday, after my only class of the day, i went to the airport to pick up my childhood friend to go to the coldplay concert, which was amazing, amazing, amazing! i cried when they played "fix you", but that song has so many ties with me that i pretty much cry even when i don't hear it live. after the concert, i decided to stay up the whole night to start packing away my room. four years is a long time to accumulate a lot of junk. i skipped my classes on wednesday so that i could be home in time for my brother's birthday. (having wednesday classes before thanksgiving is a terrible idea for a school that has so many out-of-states students.) i started cooking that night and cooked all day thursday, and the result was a pretty spectacular menu. my uncle said during dinner that it's a waste for me to go to a math and science school when i should have been at a culinary institute. haha. i actually really want to go to one later, not to start a cooking career but to spruce up my dinner parties a bit. :)

i really love being home when the whole family's there. since my brother is in the military and i'm away at college, it's nearly impossible to get all of us in one place. i had a lot of fun doing absolutely nothing with my family, and i just miss that feeling of no time constraints and no worries. today is my last day to see my brother for a long time because he's going back to iraq when i finish college. i wish i could stay at home longer, but that dreaded voice keeps reminding me that i have eighteen days left here. eighteen! geez, time flies by so fast!

i know those eighteen days won't feel like anything, but before i can be home free, i still have a lot of things to finish. i have to make some edits on my thesis, build two webpages, write a treatment for a documentary, take two finals, and piece together an hour-long documentary that i've been working on the past few months with a couple of people at pomona college. the last bit scares me the most, since all we have completed at this point is five minutes tops. it was a promising piece--the girl secured a place in the calarts film festival in january for it--but i'm scared we won't be able to complete it in time. the project changed a lot during its course, so that's why we didn't finish more. and i have too much school work now to work on it.

it felt like school was over, until i arrived at my suite door. there's still so many non-school-related things i want to do at mudd and in claremont before i leave, but i've been shooing people away because i have to keep focused. i can't stay here any longer even if i wanted to (because my backpacking trip starts in january), and i really can't screw up now. but at this moment, i am, because i'm writing this post instead of reading and researching and writing. :/

tunnel vision

i was talking with someone tonight about one of my professors (a family member of harvey mudd) who isn't too happy with harvey mudd college's affiliation with the defense industry. the guy told me that there was no problem with that, and that's what engineers do: they make bombs, and bombs kill people.

harvey mudd college is great because of its mission statement, drafted in 1956 by president platt and still observed to this day:

"harvey mudd college seeks to educate engineers, scientists, and mathematicians, well versed in all of these areas and in the humanities and the social sciences so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society."

but comments like the ones made by that guy make me really disappointed that maybe the meaning of the mission statement got lost over the years. a lot of students come here for just math and science, yes, but the beauty of hmc is that you can take humanities classes so that you can really learn the connection between what you're doing in your technical classes and the world.

i just hope that by the time these students finish their college career, they will be able to see more from different perspectives and really question each and everyone of their actions.

when i'm not at mudd...

...i still stay up till ungodly hours of the night. tonight, er, this morning, i discovered two wonderful cleaning products: CLR and the magic eraser. i've seen commercials for both, but i've never tried them out until tonight, and wow, they really work as they are advertised! my bathroom is spotless with very little effort, unlike the intense scrubbing days of before! it's only 5:30am cst right now, and i am on a roll! i think i might head on over to the kitchen. mom can't exactly get up and clean the house, so i think it'll be a nice surprise for her. :) i'll hit the books again tomorrow...

oh, and i realized that this blog has diverged a lot from its original purpose. but then again, i have no idea who's reading this blog. if you have questions about mudd, you can still hit me up. i think i'm only keeping this until i graduate, which is in a month (fingers crossed at this point, though, because i've missed quite a bit of work in the past week or so). :)

everything always gets better.

i am really at ease right now. no longer do i have to be on alert to make sure that my mother is breathing or that she's not in unbearable pain. i went almost a whole week with hardly any sleep, so i've been pretty much a zombie. my mom was released from the hospital this morning, and she is the toughest woman i know. even though i could tell she was in a lot of pain, she wanted to get herself up without much help. it'll take her a long time to heal completely, but the worst is over. we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

i'm flying back to claremont on the 15th, and i am starting to be a bit scared about the coursework that's waiting for me when i get back. my professors have been super nice and supportive, but i can't run from work forever. i have one more month, but i am still not very far in my thesis. i just quit two jobs so that i will have enough time to get everything completed. i know that i will probably not be 100% invested in my work when i get back, but with more time, i can finish everything and get my undergrad degree!

just ahn-cray-deeb-bluhr (incredible)!

tonight's presidential race was so very exciting!! by 10pm EST, i was already jumping for joy. the final announcement as the west coast states came in took me by surprise, though. i didn't realize that the final verdict was going to come in so soon, and i was in the middle of cooking my dinner as i heard the announcement on my computer speakers. i had to drop everything and turn off the stove so i can witness the finale. i'm so glad to have been part of such a historic race. obama gave a great speech, but mccain was very sportsmanlike in his speech, too. mccain actually earned a lot of respect from me tonight on how well he took the news.

remember, we still have to be mindful of the people around us. everyone is entitled to their own views, so don't go bashing now. one person in power isn't going to change the world. we are the change, so we have to be the change we want to see in the world. and we have to work together and respect one another. :)

i really wish i were able to watch the race in a large gathering, like in downtown LA or something. i celebrated with my suitemates, but it's still not the same as being there with a bunch of people and really basking in the moment. i had a talk with michael ho right after and he pointed out that i will never get to witness such an incredible race as this as a college student ever again.

there was a bit of family problem that i had to deal with tonight, so it was hard for me to be excited about the race and then feel really sad about what happened to my mom. the dream that i wrote about a week and a half ago almost came true today, and it scared the crap out of me. she was involved in a bad car accident this morning, but she is fine right now. she's still in the hospital, but the nurse said that she was doing well after her surgery. i'm flying out in about 7 hours so i can spend her birthday with her and see how she's doing. :( that's the hardest thing about going to school so far away from home; i can't be there during the moments my family needs me most.

under pressure!

i think i've overcommitted myself once again. i keep forgetting how much time classwork takes, and i agree to do everything that's thrown my way. i should be working on my thesis today since my critique is tomorrow afternoon, but i agreed to go film for some panel discussion group at scripps college. i guess it's not so bad that i am actually getting paid pretty well for my time.

ever since i started the countdown of how many days i have left in claremont/college (45) and listed everything that needs to be done before then, i get super overwhelmed. i'd like to just take things one day at a time, but at this point, the clock is tick-tick-ticking. i am leaving before my final exams are even due, so i'd worked out with some of my professors to move the exams around, which means all of my other deadlines get pushed up, too. i'd like to stay an extra few days, but airplane tickets are ridiculous during the christmas season. my plane ticket doubles if i fly on the 18th rather than the 17th. yikes!

wow, it's already november! time flies by soooooo fast!

and if you haven't already, VOTE!!!

have you ever woken up drenched in a pool of tears?

that just happened to me this morning, and it was scaryyyyyy. i should have gotten up and stayed up, because in that extra 45 minutes of sleep, i experienced the most traumatic nightmare. 

anyhow, in the dream, my parents and i went on vacation, and it was our last day there (the place looked remarkably like wellington city but i don't think i dreamt i was in new zealand). anyway, my parents went off to borrow car from a friend/family member (?) and my job was to walk with them to the side of a street and wait with the luggage until they come back with the car. i waited and waited, and no one came back for me. it started raining, and some of my friends showed up and took me home with them. the entire time, i kept questioning where i was going and where my parents were, and i was very convinced that they had ditched me. as i walked away, i kept looking back at the luggage sitting on the side of the road.

and then my dad showed up, and he didn't say where he's been or what he was doing, and i kept asking him where my mom was. and he was just as confused of her whereabouts. he said that he wasn't responsible for picking up the car because mom was supposed to pick him up then pick me up. we returned to my old house (i dream about this house every time i dream about something scary), and in the midst of all this, a neighbour was beating the crap out of her kid on the front lawn. i got pissed and went over and beat the crap out of her. then i walked into the house and out onto the back porch with 911 on the line. there was a bus of kids who weren't kids (?) and a creepy guy (who looked like the master in the 3 ninjas) in our driveway. the guy came up to us and told us that's there's no hope and that we should move on.

i called 911 again and told them what this guy was telling us, that there was a huge plane that crashed on the side of a hill, crushing all the cars below it. the guy on the other line confirmed that there was such an accident, and the hill was near the street where i was waiting. suddenly, i started crying in my dream because the creepy guy told me that my mom was probably driving there during that time and that she was probably crushed to death. i didn't believe him, but he told me to ask my neighbours because three of their family members didn't make it back driving near that hill.

and then i woke up crying out for my mom. i don't know if anyone heard me, but i was super scared when i woke up. i guess lately, i've just been missing home a lot, so it makes sense that i would dream about my parents. :( maybe this is an unconscious reflection on how scared i am to have to grow up pretty soon, that i can't just rely on my parents, especially my mom, to take care of me like they did when i was six or sixteen?

the word 'break' should be redefined.

it's the second day of fall break, and i'm at my computer, trying to write midterm papers. the prompts were only given a few days ago, so it's not like i was procrastinating. but the sucky thing is, i'm actually not really getting a break during fall break. i went down to san diego for my friend's birthday yesterday, but i had to come back this evening because of all this work. booo. and who makes things due smack dab in the middle of break? i will probably not get much sleep tonight. :(

ticketmaster is evil.

the way ticketmaster works is this: they release tickets in batches and make people think that those are the only tickets left. they create sites like ticketsnow.com where you pay a hugely inflated price for tickets that should have been sold for a "normal price" on ticketmaster. they rack the convenience fees so high that sometimes it's almost double the "price" they set for the tickets. and their search engine really doesn't search for "best tickets available".

so all you can do is gamble, hoping that if you release the tickets you currently have on hand that you will get better seats somewhere else. and it's too bad that a lot of venues only work with ticketmaster now, and it's too bad that they've become the monopoly that they are.

i've been searching online and on the phone with a tm agent all morning, and both kept telling me that the only tickets left were obstructed side stage seating on the upper terrace. i nearly gave up, but...i'm going to see coldplay in anaheim on nov. 25th! my seats are still not so fantab for the price that i paid ($100 per tickets, yikes!) but they're not obstructed! i've been really wanting to see them, and i was so sure i wasn't going to get the chance to. they were in LA over the summer, but i was in texas. and then they're playing in dallas when i'm back in claremont this semester. so when i heard a couple of days ago that coldplay was coming back to the LA area, i just had to jump on the opportunity.

yay, i'm really happy. i still haven't figured out who the second ticket's going to, but i couldn't wait around for my friends from texas to confirm, so i bought two tickets just in case. my suitemate said she'll go if i can't find anyone else. :)