i love you UCLA

best birthday ever, that's all i wanted for my birthday. and you guys made my night. i seriously thought that i was going to cry on my birthday, but you guys totally kicked gonzaga's ass... like in the last minute of the 4th quarter. :)

a year closer to death or a year away from birth?

so yeah, i'm 21. getting alcohol is no big deal because i could have gotten anytime i wanted from older people. i'm excited about gambling though... hope i don't become an gamboholic.

maybe syntax will be easier from now on

So my professor said that syntax will get more difficult for some of us while it'll be a piece of cake for others because it's going to be more mathematical. I'm good at math and I think mathematically so this is great news. All those people who did great the first half of the semester might not do so well this second half. Since I didn't do so well in the first half, maybe I'll do better in the second half. I don't want to jinx myself or anything or have any high expectations, but I really, really hope that things get easier.

Now kinship on the other hand... omg, our final paper... I have no clue what to write about. I'm scared just thinking about it. *sigh* I can never be happy with all my classes. When I'm upset about kinship, syntax is going well. When syntax isn't going well, kinship is kicking me in the butt. And phonetics, the class I'm doing the best in because I haven't gotten anything less than a 96%, is so fun and way easy. He guarantees that we'll all get at least a B in the class because if we get anything lower, he'll let us retake quizzes and rewrite stuff. How nice... but not fair that I'm doing so well that I won't be able to take advantage of that. :( There will be an extra credit thing coming up in syntax... I hope it won't be too hard. I really need it after that disasterous score on the last problem set. I think she's either being nicer to me or treating me like a baby after I did so poorly on the last problem set. I emailed her some questions on our current problem set and she used a lot of encouraging remarks like "GOOD JOB!" and "EXACTLY."

a much needed spring break

so it's sunday, the day before i have to go back to school after spring break. :( i wish spring break was longer. i really think that i have changed. i used to be really on top of things when it comes to schoolwork (shut up to people who are mad that i've never gotten anything less than a B+ on a report card because the streak will probably end here), but i think i've gotten lazier and more apathetic. i guess this semester is a test for me. life isn't easy and this is just one of those times where i have to persevere. if i can get through this semester, then i can get through anything. if i can get through syntax with a B+ or better, then and only then will i feel like all the weight of the world has been lifted off of my shoulders.

i had a dream while i was in the bay area. well, i had many dreams, but one really sticks in my mind. i had a dream that my grandfather passed away. i dreamt that he collapsed and i went to visit him at the hospital. while they were looking up his room number at the front desk, i could see the screen. the screen had the patients' names and their birthdate, and deathdate if necessary. when they came to my grandfather's name, it had a deathdate. the deathdate was 1-17-06. once i saw that, i couldn't stop crying in the dream and it was one of those angry "i hate the world" kind of crying. when i woke up, the dream was still in my mind and the deathdate made sense to me. that was my grandmother's deathdate... or rather her official deathdate. she passed away Monday night, 1-16-06, but the doctors did not pronounce her passing until after midnight at 12:15... so 1-17-06.

so what does the dream mean? what would a dream analyst say about the dream? one interpretation is to say that my grandfather died the same day my grandmother died. it's true. ever since my grandmother passed away, my grandfather has not stopped grieving. there is a shrine for my grandmother and he mourns for her everyday. and he cries and weeps often. another interpretation, i have a fear of my grandfather passing away. this one is true too. before my grandmother passed away, no one close to me had ever died and i had never been to a funeral. and now, i have a fear of losing everyone i love.

why do tragic things always happen to me during spring semester? here are a few pics from the bay area:

linda, me, gus, traci, jon

mary, me, jon, traci

me, on the way to alcatrz

blah

no matter how hard i tried to do well in school or to be a good person, it seemed like my homeliness and lack of pulchritude was all that mattered. and now, even though i spent hours and hours and hours on a problem set, working with classmates, meeting with a TA, spending every waking moment trying to solve the problems in my head, waking up with it being the first thing i think about in the morning and trying to solve it some more before i even get out of bed, it wasn't good enough. and it's not the letter of the grade that mattered, because i would have been ok if other people did as bad, but i got one of the lowest, if not THE lowest, grade in the class.

you don't know me, you don't even care. you don't know me, you don't wear my chains.

so I got my syntax problem set back...

let's just say I went into the restroom to cry and then I cried earlier tonight because I got one of the lowest grades in the class.