I went to middle school across the street from a volcano. And next door to a cemetery (though that might have been a bit further down).

While channel surfing, we caught the end of 20 Richest Women in Entertainment on E! Number one was Oprah, of course. J suggested that we write her a letter asking for help with our rent, since what we pay would be like a quarter for her. He started dictating a letter from me, "Dear Oprah, my family immigrated here when I was young. I'm the daughter of a single parent, and a hard worker..."

During this conversation, I was also heavily engrossed in a DS game. "I was on Oprah," I said nonchalantly.
"You were?"
"Yeah. Oh," I responded, realizing what I had just said.

I was on Oprah, which apparently I had completely forgotten about until just now. This would be random thing about me #31.

I wasn't on the show on the show (in person); it was a video that played on the show, but still, on Oprah. I had 30 seconds in it (or 2 minutes?), talking about the cardboard boat races we did in Physics. My high school might have been on Oprah twice while I was there. I remember a camera crew coming in to film, and I think it was a second time? Either way, I'll have to go dig up my copy of that tape now.

In high school, I took community college Japanese I & II. The only words I know now are the same ones I knew before the courses (konnichiwa, ohayo gozaimasu, genki desu, sumimasen, arigato, sayonara, etc.) and I can still recognize some hiragana, but not as much as I should. For taking Spanish 3 and Japanese (and English) at the same time, and being an A student, not much of what I learned stuck. I'm bad at languages.

But from anime to anime, I'll pick up on words I've either learned from class, or a previous anime. Like nii-san/sama or ikidakimasu.

( same old, same old *whine* )

In college, I met a girl who shared my name. We weren't close or friends really, and I haven't seen her since Santa Cruz. But I added her on Facebook, and every time I glance at my news feed and see "Stacy Leung [update]", I have to remember that that's not me.

It's been 2 months+, and it still catches me off guard sometimes.
(though to be fair, I'm used to seeing my own entries on my friends page, but I don't see my Facebook updates on my news feed)

One of the topics that invariably come up in conversation with my mom is my brother – what he's doing in school and what he should be doing, his future and how I should impart onto him my wisdom gained because I've already been through this. But I don't know, I don't know how to choose what you want to do for the rest of your life. Hell, I still don't know what I want with mine.

College is supposed to be a time of discovery. It's different for us because we have the freedom and leisure to explore. It may feel behind schedule to her, but I think we're much more well-founded for it than if we had grown up in China.

So let him try things out, decide for himself what he enjoys because that's what's important, and that's the only advice I have for him on the matter.

If 2004 was emo, 2005 would have been tagged bitter/jaded/angry. I went into the Art Institute of California - San Francisco fully optimistic, and came out of it the opposite, sharp decline.

/me wants a feature to view things tagged x *and* y. aica-sf + grr. would sum up why I'm bitter over my experience at Ai: teachers who are trying to enforce outdated or wrong material, and the whole trying to keep me from graduating thing. Then wanting to take credit for my getting a job in the industry after graduating. Uh, no?

(This was one of the things in that meme from the beginning of this year. Those entries have been added back in if you're still interested in the details. Though it sounds a lot more angry-violent than I remember.)

My 6th grade Health/Science teacher, Mr. Sakoguchi ("Mr. Sox", who I also had for homeroom and Language Arts that year) had a "fun facts" section on the bulletin board area of the room (by one of the chalkboards by the door if I remember correctly). Every week would be a new set, and knowing them at quiz time would earn you bonus points.

The one that has stuck with me to this day, that I still know 10 years later is the one about sneezing and brain cells – specifically that each time someone sneezes, he or she loses brain cells. I remember reading it over in disbelief while copying it down into my notebook, but if it was on the fact wall, it must've been real right?

This is what runs through my mind every time I sneeze, especially during sneezing fits like the ones I've been having the last couple of nights and mornings. I count how many times, and say a sad goodbye to my brain cells all the while hoping that it's not true.

Maybe I've been remembering it wrong all along. Maybe there was always a "myth" or false fact on the fact wall and that's what this was.

I am so proud of you and how much you've grown up. I can hardly believe you're the same screaming baby I held 18 years ago, or the tantrum throwing kid I fought with for so many years. ( You've stepped out from living in my shadow, and branched out into this amazing, awesome person. ) Congratulations - not so much on your graduation, because we all knew you'd graduate high school, but congratulations on growing up and becoming your own person. Enjoy the free time you have before heading off to Stanford this fall.

I knew most of these kids. They were the 7th and 8th graders I met in my junior and senior year there (since the name has changed, where I went to high school technically no longer exists now). I didn't know them well, but I knew their names and faces.

It was so weird to see them up onstage tonight, alongside my brother. In my head, they're still these little 7th and 8th graders who were running around making noise, and hogging the computers for Neopets and email when we needed them for actual schoolwork.



But onstage in front of me, it was clear that they had grown up over the last 4 years. Each one of them had transformed into a young adult - the girls in high heels and the boys with deep voices that I didn't recognize, because the last time I heard them, they were still high-pitched and squeaky.

( that was me 4 years ago. how did i become so jaded? )

I've always avoided looking at how much my loans for each quarter were. Half the time, I didn't even open the envelope when I got the notices in the mail. I already knew that it'd be a large, daunting number, and I couldn't continue my education without it, so what was the point of checking if it had to happen anyway?

Well. I should have looked. I should have cancelled it, should have dropped out of school. Or that school in particular considering I hadn't really learned anything. If I taught them more than they taught me, shouldn't they be the ones paying? That makes sense in my mind. If only the world worked that way.

$30,000 is really expensive for a piece of paper, a piece of paper I thought I'd be needing, but knew that I wouldn't really. It's my skill and self-taught knowledge that got me my job, all stuff I had before the degree, before even going to school there.

So 7 quarters, 7 quarters that amounted to $26,331 in loans (+$2,100 in accrued interest) in tuition and hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars more in art supplies, printer fees, and transportation. All for a piece of paper because I really didn't learn anything new, not to mention certain problematic, unprofessional situations with a couple teachers who didn't like being told that they were wrong.

Repayment begins in two months. Fuuuuuuck.
At least my UCSC loans are all paid off. Most the financial aid I got then were scholarships and grants so what I had to pay back was nowhere close to this mountain of debt. Why did I chose to go to an art school again?

A few months ago, before all the Disney's 50th Anniversary posters that now cover the BART station walls, there was this:

LIES. As #57318, I contest the statement on the sign. Especially with the phone calls I've been receiving from career services who only want information from me to put into their database to show the success rates of graduates from their programs. It doesn't matter that they weren't the ones who found me the job, or that I had the skills before attending their school. As long as I've graduated from there and got a job in the industry, I'm a number in their system that indicates success and that is all they care about.

Everyone's giving me shit for not going to graduation. It's just a ceremony and it's not like I know anyone I'm graduating with, much less attached to them or the school. I'm tired from the portfolio show and everything that lead up to it. I'd rather spend the day resting than find the Jewish Community Center and wait there for a few hours while names that mean nothing to me are called out. Walking across the stage is supposed to be symbolic, but I was only there for a year, and there wasn't a lot of "working hard" and "many accomplishments" on "getting here." I'll just take my diploma by mail, thanks. Besides, we're only allowed to invite 4 guests. What kind of graduation ceremony is that?

They said 29" inch round tables, but there were longer rectangular ones as well and that's where I was directed. Cool, lots more table space right? I start spreading my things out and overhear that the tables are supposed to be shared.
...WHAT? It's not like there's anything that divides the table. It won't be obvious at first glance that there are two booths at this one table. It was still more space than a round table though, and I was at the end towards the back of the room, so I could bring people over to the side rather than the front.

But my teacher didn't like my set-up. She didn't like how I had my laptop turned to the side, even though I was using the side as the front, since there'd be more room for people to stand there. She didn't like how I had my starbook displayed at the front of the table and moved it to the back, replacing it with my more traditional print portfolio instead. She did this while I was elsewhere. She was also changing JDR's things around as well when his back was turned.

JDR was the guy I was sharing the table with. I had two classes with him but I don't think I've talked to him before today. But I knew Jason and Jason was helping JDR set his stuff up. I was worried that the show was going to suck and that I'd be bored and alone because I didn't know anyone I was graduating with, but it turned out that I knew everyone in our row. There are only 3 of us graduating in Interactive Media Design. Juanita had the space to the left of JDR, but she didn't show up until 10minutes into the show. Brenden (Brandon?) was sharing the table with her and Jason, who was in my portfolio class and was at the far end. They + the row across from us were all Graphic Design students, who most people mistook us for as well. A lot of good my big WEB DESIGN sign did.

Go figure that JDR was the one I was sharing a table with. Sharon told him to have candy and she said I should have cookies. On the other side of our booth were the game people and one of them had built an arcade. It was right around the corner from us and we needed something that would draw people to us. I said we should dump the candy and go with milk and cookies, but people would spill and that would be bad. So we went to Walgreens and got a mixture of Hershey's kisses and along the way I told JDR and Jason about the incidents that went on earlier this week, and they've both had her so they understood.

The candy worked out well. There were the people who'd hesitate to take a piece, and then there were the people who'd try to be sneaky like they were kids who weren't allowed to have candy. And there was the opposite – the ones who'd grab a handful and smile a caught-but-don't-care grin.

My business cards went fast as well. Everyone was stopping and picking them up because "omg, these are so cute!" and asking how I got the die cut done. There were a lot of shocked faces when I told them I did that part myself, even though it hardly took any time at all and was a stress-reliever. The first few girls who stopped by really liked my starbook display, and they knew that it folded into a book as well. I was surprised that someone knew.

There were a lot of people who showed up, but most of them were students. There were prospective employers, but their name tags didn't help so much. With company names like Digital something, that doesn't exactly let us know what industry they're from or what they're looking for. Sweet Potato could have been fashion design as well as graphic design. I was also surprised at how young some of the employers were; they couldn't have been more than a few years older than me, especially the guys from Ubisoft. A lot of name-tagged people stopped by my booth, but none of them were really from where I'd want to work. There was one small 6 person design company, but they're way out in Napa.

A lot of students came by that either recently started or are thinking about starting at Ai and they were asking about how good the program is, and how I created such and such. There were also administrative people from the school offering their congratulations and such. A lady from admissions asked me what I liked best about the IMD program. Dressed up all business-like, I felt it inappropriate to say that I thought it sucked. Luckily, I had an answer that worked and wasn't a lie. I told her I liked the interaction with the other students, being able to bounce ideas off of them and drawing from their creativity as well.

A lot of people were computer phobic and preferred to flip through the print stuff, even though most of what I've done was meant to be viewed on the computer because of difference in color and dpi. When I was setting up, I found a few wireless connections. One of them was the hotel's, which required a credit card for access. Another was just open – wanderingwifi, and I got onto it which worked fine for a while. Until the show started. They turned it off or locked me out or something. But I had my stuff saved locally. It took 8 hours total though, because no one informed me that I could just install something that would run PHP on my computer. That's one more thing my teacher was supposed to do but didn't. Probably because she had no idea herself.

Whatever. I still spent more money than I expected on the show and it turned out the way I thought. I didn't get job offers and they didn't have anyone there that would have been right for us anyway. But I did see some people who I haven't seen since first quarter and I did inspire a few kids. My feet fucking hurt from standing all day though, especially since I'm not used to wearing boots. But at least I looked good.

He followed me into the elevator, walked past everyone else and stood next to me, smiling a big goofy grin.
"Hi,-I'm-(I forget his name),-what's-your-name?" He spoke nervously. And fast.
"Stacey." I told him, since I was trapped in an elevator and couldn't walk away pretending that I didn't see or hear him.
"Do-you-live-in-the-city?-I'm-from-the-East-Bay,-but-I-come-here-all-the-time-to-check-my-email," he continued on, speeding up as he went.
Oh, I live in the East Bay too, but unlike you, I check my email "all the time" like all the time and on my own computer. I gave him a sort of half-smile and looked out the doors as it opened onto the 2nd floor. One more to go. He kept staring at me and I thought about getting out, but how much longer could one more floor down be? Besides, leaving would just be mean and extra time and effort on my part. So I asked him if he went to Berkeley, since he had on a Cal sweatshirt.
"No,-I-got-this-at-the-store-because-it-was-cool."
Didn't think so.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened. I walked towards the exit as fast as my short legs could carry me. They failed. He caught up and nervously stumbled over more words, that smile never leaving his face.
"Do-you-have-a-phone-number?"
I need to stop holding my cell phone in my hand, in plain view, especially when I say that no, I don't have a phone number. But he didn't hear me. Or maybe he forgot he asked because he said it so fast.
"Do-you-have-a-phone-number-or-email-or-something?"
"I don't give that out. Bye!" I said as I went out the door and off to set up for the portfolio show where I handed out my phone number, email, and web address to strangers for 5 hours.

Gotta give him credit for trying though. But the way I was dressed today, it was clear that I was out of his league. I can never remember the Rejection Hotline number when I have the chance to give it.

I am fucking pissed off. She failed me. I showed her my work and she still failed me. And in the worst way possible, with a grade that is considered passing but not for this particular class. A passing grade is a C and she gave me a C- out of spite. Fucking bitch. I had to meet with her yesterday too, to show that I had everything in order. She knew that a C- isn't passing, yet she told me nothing and pretended like she gave me passing grade and that I'd still be in the portfolio show.

I got a call this afternoon from my career advisor asking what's going on, that it looks like I may not be graduating after all, and to work something out with my academic advisor.

I called him and he said he was told about my C- this morning and explained that even though I had a passing portfolio, I didn't have a passing grade. And that my teacher left it up to him to pass or fail me and that he would have to see my work today because tomorrow would be too late. It was 3:30 and he'd only be there till 5 and I'm even more pissed off at this point because if everyone knew this morning, why wasn't I notified and everything was all last minute?

But I got there and showed him what I had, and he agreed to change my grade to a C after asking what I had learned from this. To which I answered that I should show up to all my classes (because certain teachers have power trips and accept no excuses even though I have all my work done and completed the course objectives). I can't wait to graduate and be done with this school.

Portfolio show checklist, since I am obviously not prepared.

[x] business cards
[ ] resume – will print tomorrow when I pick up my panel prints from Kinko's
[x] name banner – pick up from Kinko's tomorrow after 11am
[x] prints to put up on my ONE panel – pick up from Kinko's tomorrow after 11am
[-] CDs – not happening because I can't print labels and because I think it's a lame idea and I don't have the money for it
[x] portfolio website
[ ] portfolio website saved locally – halfway done, after 3 hours last night
[x] print portfolio.. not really happening. I have it in the form of my starbook, but I can't afford to buy a black print portfolio and make printouts of my work to fill up enough pages. Argh, I should do it.
[x] leave behinds. I have 4 magnets because the print shop at school screwed up the other 24 I was going to print out. I just sent a batch to be printed at Kinko's but who knows how that'll turn out.
[x] professional attire to wear. Check. I'll keep the jacket and return the pants that balloon out.

Time is running out and I am probably forgetting something else. But I also have work that needs to be done which then becomes a matter of what is more important. I'm spending money on one and making money from the other..

business cards: $33.52
star-shaped punch: $10
starbook: $10 worth of supplies + $8 prints
"professional attire": $50
name banner and prints for panel: $11.22
leave behinds: $20.83 more
star shaped post-its: $3

That's almost $150 so far, just for the portfolio show. This isn't including transportation costs or my web portfolio, since I've already had the website and hosting. That's more than half my last paycheck and I don't even have a steady job. So that's $150 plus a dollar for each copy of my resume (probably 15?) and the number of pages I'll have in my print portfolio plus the portfolio book itself. By Thursday, I'll have spent close to $200 on my booth (over if you include the website and transportation) so it better be worth it and I better get a good job or networking connections out of it.

And when I show up at Kinko's tomorrow, my prints better be there because last time I sent them something online, they didn't have it. I called to confirm, but it didn't sound like the guy even knew what he was talking about. I hope the paper isn't crappy either :x

I can't wait for Thursday to be over and not have to deal with this anymore.

I need "interview clothes" by Tuesday because I'm supposed to show up to class dressed like I would for an interview. And also to wear at the portfolio show. I have the stuff I normally wear to interviews, but I want something more.. professional looking?

I went to South Shore (though I think now it's been renamed something else with the opening of the new, larger Safeway) to get shoes for the Vi's wedding tomorrow since I've been busy and haven't had time to do any of this till now. Found those cheap and easy at Payless. They're cute, but I hate wearing dainty shoes and can barely walk in them. There was only one pair in size 6 and I think they've been worn and returned. And they might be again after tomorrow. I hope my dress still fits and doesn't just fall too loose now. I got it for a wedding two years ago that we didn't go to, and I wore it for the first time when we went to dinner last year. Tomorrow morning, I'll see how well it goes with the shoes and if the either is worth hanging onto since I hardly have formal events to go to and such pretty things aren't meant to be sitting in one's closet.

Anyway, after succeeding in finding shoes, I headed to Mervyn's to see if I could do as well with interview attire. No such luck. Every collared button up shirt had stripes, and not just stripes, but glittered stripes. I want to shimmer, but I don't want my clothes to too. I also discovered that petite sizes came in sizes small to extra large as well, and that all the tops in that section were somehow too wide for my body. I'm sticking to the junior's section, even though I'm past high school age.

I found a matching pantsuit set that fit me pretty well, the jacket part especially. The sleeves were a little long, but that's an easy fix. There was only one and it was a size small. It hugged my body perfectly and accented my curves really well. There's only one button though, so there's a large V scoop at the neck and a smaller one below the belly button. It looks hot if I wear the top just like that, but then that makes it not interview attire. The outfit is striped, which means I probably shouldn't wear a stripped shirt underneath it, but I couldn't find any in solid colors. I want a dark colored one that doesn't have stripes and doesn't have sparkles. But that was non-existent in the store and I left without buying anything.

Tomorrow, after the wedding, I'm hunting in either SF or Berkeley and something better turn out because I need something and I don't have the time to find it.

After completely loving my Mac, I discovered it's not perfect. Specifically in that "if you decide to go ahead and use a name which begins with a dot the file will be hidden."

I forget why I wanted to mess with my .htaccess files now. I wanted to put in something to keep out spam, and to change something with my WordPress archives. Little did I realize I'm too tired to think.

I uploaded a file to my portfolio site, which caused it to stop working and I freak out because I need to have that stuff next week and what if I can't get it back? It didn't show up in my FTP because of the dot thing, and I couldn't log into my FTP through a PC for some reason. When I went through my control panel, it moves the file to the trash, which needs to be emptied before the file is really deleted. But that brought up a 404 not found.

Then Liqiud found me a default .htaccess that would fix everything. Except it didn't. But it really did, because the first upload didn't overwrite the bad file. So thanks to Liquid, my site is now back up and viewable. But he was the one who gave me the other file in the first place. It was my bad to upload it where I did though.

But all fixed now. No more 500 Internal Server Error, no more freaking out. Next time I decide to test something, it better be on a test directory and when I'm in the right state of mind to actually think it through.

(this was a password protected entry, not really sure what it's about since what i thought it was is in the new few entries)

People are driving me fucking crazy. I am overworked and I need a vacation. I'll have my vacation after graduation, but it's now that I need a break. I still need to get my print portfolio together, as well as figure out how to decorate my booth. I have the table part figured out, but I don't know what to put up on my panels so it'll be noticed from across the room. I want a 3D display with a star coming out and forming the point of a triangle using the side panels as support. But I don't know how I'd attach that. I'm probably going to string up paper stars that spell out my name, but I don't think I can fold enough by then. I'm going to end up using the ones in the jar Clare gave me when I graduated high school, but I'll feel bad poking holes through those. And I still need to print out and put together with leave-behinds. At least I've finished the design.

People are driving me crazy. Everyone wants something and they want it right now. I just don't want to deal with it anymore. I have enough work to do as is. I should stop taking on projects, and limit it to 2 clients at a time, max. There's not enough time right now and it's just stressing me out too much. I'm ignoring people when I don't mean to, and I'm not spending time with everyone that I need to be.

Tomorrow, I'll be sleeping at home so that I can get up before 9. My Monday will start hours earlier than usual. I have that interview at 10, a graduation meeting at 12, class from 1-5, and then a presentation to make at 6. Bam, bam, bam. One after another with no break at all until it's all done, and I'll probably collapse and pass out before I even give my boyfriend a kiss.

I need a vacation.