!!!

My mom got a Facebook and added my cousins but not me. : (. Mom, why didn't you add me?

Two things I could have guessed before the New York Times told me so

Me: Hey Nancy. This article says that interracial rommates can decrease prejudice but increase stress.
Nancy: Yeah?
Me: My roommates were both Asian.
I pause and continue reading
Me: Wait. Except Asians. Apparently interracial rooming situations with Asians makes you more prejudiced.

Just an update

Baby can roll over again. She just had to get used to the new carpet. Breathe freely.

Chat with Yu Kwon

Jun 24 (6 days ago)

4:54 PM me: i taught baby how to roll over

Yu: MM

well

you are the best

me: i agree

Yu: I feel like that may be your biggest accomplishment this summer

Eunice is probably right. I have it on video. Two videos, in fact. In the second one, she struggles a little more, and so it's cuter. I wrote a long long blog post about the process, but I sent it to A-L, worried it was too Mom-blog. She said it'd be fine. For Parenting Magazine.

BUT OH NO GUESS WHAT.
She won't do it anymore.
And hasn't been able to do it for the past couple of days. I've been practicing with her again, but she's been struggling. It might be the new, thicker carpet. Or her muscles just plain forgot. Or she's mad at me I don't know what have I accomplished this summer nothing.

Things of note

1. I'm at home right now, in the basement. Someone opened my time capsule (Do not open until September 06, 2015, guys!) from the bottom and is currently using it to store the petty cash books of some limited liability corporation. What do I do? Reseal it? UGH.
2. June 16, 2009, 7:58 pm
the moment i realized that "mad libs" was a play on "ad-lib."
3. TAYL TOMORROW. (Or yesterday, but I just got back into the city)
4. I want to go to bed.

I can't sleep

This never ever happens. I can always sleep. But I just lay in bed for an hour. My feet are burning. Last time I felt this way was in the dorms last year. Before school started, my doctor recommended that I get the Meningitis shot. I agreed to, but forgot about it, and didn't remember until one night, when I woke up at 2 a.m. and my feet felt like they were on fire. I decided it was the Meningitis, and I was going to die. I lay there kicking myself for not getting the shot for hours. (which probably would have made the heat worse, were it not figurative kicking) I ended up okay though. I wikied Meningitis the next morning, so I was cured.  

There's a "Meningitis Belt" in Africa. If you'd like to know which countries, ask Carter:

It's only 12. Normally I'd be up now anyway, but we're waking up early to go to Sea World tomorrow. "We're going to see Shamu!," Sister keeps telling Baby. Baby can't understand her. Sometimes I don't understand my sister. 

This probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't fallen asleep reading at 9 (I'm 200 pages into Atlas Shrugged. I don't like it. If I wanted to read about sexually charged capitalism, I'd...actually, I don't know. I'd probably just read this. Why do I suck at analogies?) and woke up at 10. So now I feel refreshed! Energized! Ready to 

If I drink some orange peach mango juice is that going to inhibit my sleep? Because I want some. Too late. 

Unrelated: My face has erupted in pimples since I got here. This semester I've been  battling a second bout of adolescent acne (nature's way of laughing my face, I think). It's worse than anything I had in high school. It's probably because of the junk food that I've been eating. But I thought that was supposed to be a myth. Maybe it's Meningitis.

My feet aren't burning anymore maybe I'll try to sleep again.  

evidence of child abuse

Little known fact (and I tell you this in confidence)

Baby is a thug.

No but seriously,

I saw her give her boyz this look, and next thing you know, all the kids in the park were gone, and she had the place to herself.

Having a thug niece may not be a bad thing. At the rate she's been advancing (she's only four and a half months old), she will likely be the thug boss shortly. And then if I ever find myself in a tight bind (gambling debts, a close election, an irritable dog next door) ...she'll be happy to help out her old auntie, right? Connections.

But I just wish she didn't kick me all the time.

The bruises are actually a lot worse, pictures do little justice to my splotchy thighs. She continues to possess the strength of an earnest water buffalo, coupled with the antsiness of a hyena cub. (Brad has the Discovery Channel on all the time and now all my analogies are involve supporting characters from The Lion King.)

What do I do? I can't not change her diaper. And I don't want to have to face her boyz.

Workout

Before school ended, when people asked me what I was going to do in Pasadena while with baby, I explained that only one thing was concrete: Baby and I were going to go jogging around town every morning in her stroller (it's monstrous. It takes up the whole sidewalk, and has shocks) in matching sweatsuits. Think The Royal Tenenbaums.

But I got here and felt my dream crushed beneath the the 24.6 lbs of stroller weight (plus 16lbs of pure baby myscle). The only baby sweatsuit I found online was $40. (It was cute though. Yellow and Adidas) The stroller is incredibly heavy and difficult to haul down the stairs. Not to mention the process of strapping her in her carseat, finding a straight path to facilitate running with a locked wheel...and baby is only awake for less than two hours at a time, so that as soon as I'm out the door, I have to come back. I went the whole first week exercising once. (Except for daily walks, and baby lunges. Baby lunges are regular lunges while holding the baby in the bjorn. They're necessary so as to not tip over Baby while taking something out of a drawer or the bottom shelf at TJs)

So, lately I've just been swimming at night once everyone's in bed. It's nice. The water isn't too cold, there's no one there because it's 10:00 (yes, that's when the sibsters go to bed, isn't that ridiculous?)

The first night, I noticed a pain in my side. "Maybe I threw it out in the breaststroke," I thought. But as the soreness on my right side continued to the next night, I realized what the source of my soreness was.

Holding the baby on my hip.

oops wait. I need to make an announcement before I say anything else:

This blog has officially hit mom blog status.

But it's not my fault, and it's not a bad thing.

a) I think most of my friends from home and college who read this don't read mom blogs, so I'll be unique

b) There is little else going on in my life worth noting other than her. Jon Chen told me while we were videochatting yesterday that "it pretty much sounds like she runs your life." True.

c) She's actually pretty interesting:

She tried to eat my head just now. I was giving her a raspberry on her tummy after I changed her out of her sleeping shirt, and she grabbed me by the head (forcefully) and opened her mouth HUGE while she pulled me toward her.

It looked like this (but with a wider mouth):

This might be a little hard to believe, but baby has the strength of ten oxen. For a second I really did wonder, "How can I avoid the little one eating me?" While I knew I didn't stand a chance in a battle of brute force, I figured I could outwit her (she's only four and a half months old, so this isn't that great of an accomplishment) by pulling my hair away and wiggling out of her grasp. It worked!

So now I'm out and free to tell the tale. Who knows what other adventures I'll come across in this babysitting stint? That's why I'm still going to read my blog, at least.

I took Baby to TJ

She hid inside the refrigerator. 

Just kidding! That was an old picture. Here's Baby:

Oh how different Trader Joes can be. I was initially excited to traipse around town, baby in tow, looking like a teenager mother with my Baby Bjorn. 

The sad truth...

I'm 20. This could very well be my kid. No one stared. Other TJ goers call me "mommy" without a shadow of a raised eyebrow on their faces. But I like walking around with everyone commenting on how cute she is. I wish being nicer to strangers was more socially acceptable. Sometimes I want to compliment someone's earrings, or strike up more conversations on the bus, but whenever I do, or other people do, it's awkward. Having a baby is a nice social lubricant. Everyone, old and young, (especially old) smiles and talks to me when I've got Baby on my side.  

I've had a lot of baby time this past week. It's been a nice exercise in unselfishness, a lesson that "Baby's feelings trump yours. Always." And she knows it. It took her about two days to figure out that I will let her do whatever she wants, even if her mommy's instructions may suggest otherwise. Plus, she liks to wake up in the middle of her nap crying, until I come in. Then she flashes me her grin. 

I was going to post a picture of her smiling, but I think that's what Nancy's blog is for. While it's nice to think that baby is always a chipper child in a well-lit room, 5-10% of the time, she looks like this:  

I think she's just jonesing for something to put in her mouth. She sucks on everything. Especially my fingers. She gave me a little hickey on my hand today. It looks like a freckle unless I point it out. 

Other things I have discussed with Baby:

• Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the  Supreme Court. (Mehhhh, says baby.)
• The book 美味水果 Delicious Fruit. (She chewed on a corner)
• Spitting up all the time. And by discuss, I mean she does it. All the time.

I also had to tell Baby five times (Slowly and patiently, of course. She's a baby, after all.) that I am not lactating, and am thus unable to breastfeed her. However, if she would accept this bottle as a substitute until her actual mother came home, I'd be much obliged. 

It'll be fun to see where the rest of the summer goes. Does anyone have any activity ideas? Or would anyone like to come down for a play date? 

Connie Parenting Tip #1*

If your Connie is a finicky eater, try presenting nutritious foods in fun shapes. Tell stories with the food--as long as each story ends with the characters exploring the crunching noises of a dark cavern. Encourage your Connie to come up with its own story. Who says you can't play with your food?

Airplane-shaped graham crackers

Dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets

And a personal Connie favorite, Taiwan-shaped pineapple cakes.

* Note: Parents tips are for those looking for advice and effective methods for parenting your Connie

Wickedly Wonderful Whopper

I finally made use of my free Whopper coupon.  (Free in the monetary sense. That sandwich cost me ten friends.) It was delicious. Every bite packed a savory mix of ketchup, beef, and betrayal. 

So why the delay in redeeming my burger? The Burger King headquarters in Miama-Dade Co., Florida, sent me me the coupon months and months ago. And there have been several occasions in those months and months where I have been hungry. 

Well. There appear to be NO BURGER KINGS anywhere in Berkeley.  (Hmn. I just went to the website. It appears the nearest ones are in Emeryville, El Cerrito, and Oakland. Thanks, but no thanks.) The franchise-hating Berkeley residents have found themselves satisfied with their mere McDonalds, Jack-in-the-Boxes and expressions of a world aplenty. 

The time for Burger King action, however, is now. What with their Star Trek kids meals and collectors items cups, and their...that's it, actually. But that is compelling enough. Luckily, yesterday Fran and I found ourselves at the Civic Center BK by the main library. All the way in San Francisco, because we were seeing...

Wicked!
But haven't I seen Wicked already? Yes, three times, in fact. Let's do a comparison!

1. Senior year of high school

How: John burned me a copy he found on the internet, featuring the original Broadway cast. 

Place: Broadway, I suppose

Company: By myself

Quality: The guy with the video camera didn't even have good seats. And had a pretty weak zoom on his camera. Plus, half of "Dancing Through Life" is missing, because he turned off the camera when security walked by.

Cost vs. utility? Heck, it was free. A+!

2. January 27

How: My darling parents bought me tickets for my birthday, which coincided with opening night!

Place: The Orpheum 

Company: My mom, Carter, Arly-Lian, and part of the time Avanti and Gabe
Quality: The seats were a little far back...as far back as possible, actually. But we were in the center of the room, and the girl who played Elphaba was aMAZING. 

Cost v.wssssssss sxdx. My s and x keys were stuck. 

3. Yesterday

How: Fran has her ways

Place: The Orpheum 

Company: Fran, Spock 

Quality:  Side orchestra seats. A weird view, but you are IN THE FACE of all the actors. It's a much richer experience when you can see the emotions on their faces.

I think I want to see it again. 

All the time. It's just open all the time.

1:46 AM me: where are you

1:47 AM Arly-Lian: room. studying.

  thinking about doing the library in an hour

  its still 34/7 yeah?

 me: uh

  no

 Arly-Lian: *23

 me: uh no

 Arly-Lian: **34

 me: uh

 Arly-Lian: crap

"There a lot of stuff I do to kind of make myself look adult."

This 18-year-old running for city council in New York tickles my fancy. His style is fresh and progressive, just like his campaign. I support that. I'm a little bit worried at how young he looks to me though. Am I getting old? Does that mean I can stop wearing these suits? 

Edit: 4:55. MORMON CHANNEL? ahah. YES. 

Why do I do this to myself

I went from calm to riled up about my paper and now I think I need a stress nap. But I don't deserve a stress nap because I procrastinated too much...but that's why I'm stressed. Thoughts?

I should open the window.

There's a giant mosquito eater that's been flying all around my room since last night. I kind of forget it's there until it hovers by my legs. This must be what it's like to have a dog. 

omp

At one point or another, I was in a Facebook group something along the lines of "writing entire papers single spaced makes my double spacing climactic." It's always been climactic. Except just now. When I figured out that I was originally on 1.15 spacing. And now I have to write another page. I thought I was going to get to go to bed. 

This comment originally signaled  my triumphant overcoming of the page minimum. Now it's a conclusion that needs to be an entire page long. 

Binary solo

I’m writing a paper and trying not to use the word “binary.” It's difficult. I think it's become the word of the semester. Everyone, their professor, and their mother have brought the word "binary" into class discussion. We can't see this issue as a binary, the author illustrates the issue with a binary...

I'm always interested in finding common themes that run through my educational experiences semester by semester. There's something in the Berkeley water that puts everyone on the same page. This semester was about the existence and disavowal of binaries...and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Last semester all my classes were repeated introductions to Marxism.

In lecture the other day, Arly-Lian mapped out the schedule in which the education system discloses human atrocities. It went something like this:

Elementary school: Slavery and or segregation
Middle School: The holocaust
High School: (depends on the locality. Arly-Lian says there was a focus on Japanese internment at her school. We focused more on McCarthyism, I think.)
College: The Chinese Exclusion Act

The more I think about it, the more I think my teachers have presented life to me in binaries. The good and the evil. The oppressor, and the opppressed. The cold hard truth, and the lies that Republicans want us to believe. I guess as we become more cognizant that facts can lie on a spectrum, the fewer clearly defined "atrocious" incidents we're willing to learn about.

I'm not sure. I'm tired. I wish I could blog nonsense all the time instead of writing papers. Here is a semi-relevant youtube video: