First Day of Spring

Yay! I love spring. You still remember when it used to get dark at 4:30 so you appreciate the longer days (unlike in the summer). It's not too cold and not too hot (the Goldilocks season?). The clothes are nicer. Birds are chirping and bees and buzzing and everyone in LAland is just so HAPPY!

Anyway. I got this report on myself in the mail today. It was a copy sent to me because my employer for this summer requested one for themselves. It's really interesting, they know more about me than I knew about myself. I saw an [unused] credit card account that I'd forgotten that I had. Which is funny because I don't keep that many accounts. Yeah... I feel like they listed everything except maybe my boyfriend history. hahah. That would be awesome. I look like such a baby on paper. Everything is so clean, and so short. I'm so proud of my clean short life.

I went to the Magic Castle yesterday with W and fam. I felt so bad for one of the performers because she was really nervous (like visibly shaking, voice straining) and was nervous for a reason-- she was the worst magician there. I heard people talking later that she had messed up badly earlier in the week and visitors had been calling in to get her out. Sad. Being a magician is not easy-- in a way, people are waiting to expose you, figure you out, see you mess up. Hate you or love you.

The rest of the performers in the small rooms were awesome though. Two of them were cool "mind reader" card trick types. I have no idea how they do it. I mean, they went out of their way to prove the cards weren't marked, didn't know the people (even W got picked), cards repeatedly shuffled by audience, etc. The last guy was the best because he stuck to basic coin & card type tricks, but it was incredible. We were in a tiny room, I was seated probably five feet away, to the side-- probably a magician's weakest spot (I saw a lot of magician's "tricks" at close angles before). But everything was flawless. He's nuts. I don't feel like I'm an easily impressed person, either, because I thought the magicians in the big room were very blah.

And now spring break has started.

A nice gateway into spring.

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Picture of the Post:

(above) Cow inventory in the German Alps

Obama's Speech on Race

Full Text: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords
Also see: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-campaign19mar19,1,4641756.story

Speech given today in response to growing racial tensions stemming from Jeremiah Wright's and Geraldine Ferraro's comments.

I think it is a great speech. I really respect Obama for it. Sad but not surprising that it has come to this.

Although there are more important points in the speech, one point that stood out to me was:
"Obama said that "for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible." As for Wright, he said, "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street....These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.""

While I, like most people, denounce racism and other forms of ignorant hatred, is it really that surprising that people harbor such views? Racism and prejudice is everywhere. If I were to cut ties with every friend/family member/person who holds a racist belief, makes a prejudiced comment, and/or lives life with a biased mind, I would be a lonely person. And that's coming from liberal CA. And have I ignorantly passed mental judgments that I would be ashamed of if it were reduced to writing and spread across the papers? Yeah.

It's better to deal with these issues openly than to act as though 'oh, no one has these thoughts (at least not normal, educated ones!!), surely not myself'... and then lambaste a person when someone close to them decides to voice their thoughts openly.

Anyway. A speech I hope will make a difference. More likely a small one than a big one, unfortunately.

On a somewhat related note, it's funny how we like to root for the underdog and then gleefully bring down those at the top, even if they are the same person. Why some people derive so much pleasure from watching others fall from grace is not something I easily understand. Schadenfreude or whatever, right? Is it human nature or something developed culturally/socially? I would have to go for the latter.

That just came from the thought that I think it's a sad state of things when, out of the NY governor ordeal, Spitzer has been brought down while his prostitute is making millions. Did he do something wrong? Yes. Should he, in light of his other accomplishments, have had to resign? I don't know. Should she be profiting off of it now? No. But here we are. We just love it.

I'll get back to posting cute pictures now.

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Picture of the Post:

Resting at the Saturday Market in Mexico City

:|

i find that 'knowing yourself' is harder than it sounds.





.. oo i'm so emo! and angsty!

jay

天青色等煙雨 而我在等妳

tbc

Bitsize Mario Table!

Saw this on Boing Boing, it's so cool! It's like a collision of two of my favorite things... Mario and home design. It's just a tile job on an old coffee table:

Super M

I created this character sometime during college. The cape gives her super power credibility, and the fact that it constantly waves in the wind (even when there is no wind) commands respect.

Now I have some time and motivation for slight character development.

It just makes super people more super.

I was watching Blue Planet: Sea of Life. Fat seals tickle my insides.

Mr Walrus wants a cape, too.

Animal planet is so funny sometimes. The way they humanize animals, like Meerkat Mansion and Lemur Kingdom and Chimp Eden... sometimes it's ridiculous. Although I have to admit the animals are so cute and interesting. Lemurs of Madagascar seem especially funny.

You know what's not cute (but maybe interesting)? leopard seals. Remember in that husky movie Eight Below where one bamrushes out of the dead whale carcus? I think that was scarier than Godzilla.

ARGGGHHH!!!

Oh, and as I was watching Animal Planet, there were all these commercials for cleaning products. Because apparently only domesticated wives in their 30s watch Animal Planet at this time. It's interesting to think what watching certain programming is supposed to say about you. It's all about Girls Gone Wild on nighttime Comedy Central.

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Picture of the Post:

These seem pretty Super.
Between the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy (07/06)

Water for Elephants-- B+

(I'll have to write a post about my methodology at some point. Because what use are reviews if you have totally different tastes and mindsets from the reviewer. Anyway, B+ = very good)

A novel about the circus. By an author who has a career as a technical writer. Hmmm...

Water for Elephants is another book I picked off the top-sellers lists based on reviews. I wouldn't normally read about the circus for no reason, but I was intrigued. The story is set on the rumbling train of a traveling circus, following the rise and fall of a wannabe Barnum and Bailey (literally).

It was exactly what it promised to be: a journey into the tumultuous and often dark side of circuses and the people who live the circus life.

The most interesting thing I learned was the situation of "red lighting"-- throwing circus workers who were no longer worth their pay off the moving train. It was also crazy to think about just how difficult a feat those traveling circuses of yesteryear were. Transporting hundreds of workers and performers along with elephants, giraffes, lions, tigers, etc? It made me want to go visit a circus. You always have a better appreciation of things when you better understand how they came to be.

Anyway, it's a well researched story into a world you wouldn't necessarily ever otherwise get to know. Murder and a love story on a backdrop of pink sequins, Polish elephants, and jake-drinking old men.