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taroyaki
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Country: United States
State: California
Gender: Female
Interests: Great people, music, art, anime/manga, KEY Club, FOOD, writing.
Expertise: Getting rolled around in can food barrels.
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
3/30/2003
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| First day of school is TODAY! And my first class for the 2009-2010 academic school year is in a couple of hours. I've been actually looking forward to school, and sadly, I think I'll have to partly blame that for the second part of summer where all I did was full-time research on campus. I'm not saying that I hate what I do - it's incredibly interesting! It's just hard working with an 8AM-5PM shift day by day sometimes even overtime, but I'm assuming that will be the same for most other 8-5 careers. It just reminds me that school can be amazing. It's going to be hard balancing classes, research, job, and extra studying for GRE/MCAT, though still debating on which path I should follow. But with all the great people around, it'll be manageable.  | | |
| I'm quite surprised/relieved that there are still a few of you out there still in the xanga world! How is everyone? It's kind of hard to get back into blogging (I wasn't so much a great or responsible blogger in the first place), but here are the noteworthy quick and quirky facts:
1) I spend a great portion of my time at lab or doing something related to lab work on a daily basis now. And with whom, you ask? With scientist's greatest ally, the fruit fly! That's right, I am beginning my transformation into a Drosophile and work in the company of scientific giants, both big and small, nice and... well, let's say intimidating.
2) I get to move into my new apartment begining of September. I am extremely excited, and you all should plan to drop by for a small visit some day, most preferrably after I finally get on my knees and pick up my crap off the floor of my future room.
3) I am a self-proclaimed gymnastics nerd and started taking gymnastics recreation classes since last year on campus. Yes, I get a lot of raised eyebrows on this one, and I'm sure most of you behind the screen have one or two raised as well, but it is CRAZY fun and I definitely reccomend everyone to try it out. I did sprain my ankle and hobbled around for three weeks or so, but I have never felt so excited to work out in a long time. Still having trouble with the handstand, of course, and I hate to point this out, but I was never one of those kids who knew how to do a proper cartwheel in the elementary school. 
4) That leaves us to question how I am doing in badminton. Well, after the efforts my good friends spent on trying to make me a decent badminton partner, I haven't improved to the level I hoped to be by this time, but I still make sure to go out every Tuesday and Thursday evenings to play a couple of sets with them.
5) I am getting a pet rat! He is currently under the care of my good friend until I can move into my apartment. He is a fat white-coated, red-eyed boy and has the nicest temperament! His current name is Gus, and I'm thinking of expanding his "full" name, either into Augustus, Gustave, or Gustavo. Or maybe I should just leave it as Gus? Feel free to leave your own suggestion.
6) I went back to Indonesia earlier this summer and it was nice to be back and see all my relatives. Miss them a lot, but I'm hoping to go back again soon.
How is everyone else doing?
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| WHAT UP, GUYS?
How many of you are actually going to see this post? Comment if you do! I'd like to take a small survey and see how many people who I know in my xanga circle are still taking the responsibility to check up on it every once in a while to read their subscriptions or to post and entry themselves. I'm guessing that the figures are going to be close to zero, but I'll give you all the benefit of the doubt.
Jennifer convinced me to make this journal entry as it will be the first entry for the year of 2009, also my seventh year on xanga. Crazy, huh? I just went back through a lot of entries, some very embarassing, some very funny, (and some very emo and incredibly STUPID now, but that doesn't really matter anymore) and it was all very nostalgic to me. Filing and keeping documents is a part of my hobby, so I'm going to one day sit down and make a hard print copy of all my xanga entries, comments included. How awesome would that be?
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| Or what happened to me?! Maybe I'm just seeing things. I finally remembered once again that I have a xanga, so might as well put a little updates on it. Well, just to sum up Year 2007 since now 2008 is all brand-spankin' new, I probably had the shittiest year ever. I'll skip over the unpleasant details and jump right towards the end of it, when I got to spend my entire winter break with my sister at Shanghai. That was pretty cool, and to make it even more awesome, I got to spend New Year's there too, and so let's hope 2008 will be filled with a lot more happy things. Ugh, sometimes I think I just lack creativity, especially in music. So here's an interesting topic: Improvisation. I remember in my Music Theory class, our class had a discussion on improvisation, and of course the question of people's ability for improvisation came up. Do you think improvisation is a learnt quality, or an innate quality? Because really, how do you learn to improvise? It becomes a bit of an oxymoron. But I guess in any way I word it, there would always be some out there who think that yes, of course people could learn! From my point of view, I've always pictured people "feeling" their way through notes, thinking, "Yeah, if I just descend a little, yeah, THAT'S it!" I find it harder to think people would actually go through the trouble of thinking, "Alright now. One chord in first inversion. Half step up bottom note, whole step up middle note, WA-POW! There's my fourth!" I don't know. But what I DO know is that sadly, I, myself have been using the latter method, and what it is that makes it a sad proclamation is that I haven't witnessed any progress. I probably shouldn't even call it and attempt to improvise. Maybe I just don't have the ear for music or the soul of a musician, however much proper training I've had. It just doesn't click for me. I used to spend a good amount of time locking myself in Hedrick's piano room by myself last year clunking away on the keys. Sometimes I'd stop and think, "Yeah, I guess that sounds alright." Sometimes I would even think "pretty good." But in the end, alright and pretty good always turn out to be a no, because in music, you will know when you like it. When you hear what you want, that's what makes the sparks fly. Cliffnotes style: I guess I'll just have to deal with performing other people's works for quite some time. | | |
| Franz Schubert's Standchen, No. 4 from his Schwanengesang, D. 957. I don't know why, but especially during the winter season, I love listening to this song. | | |
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