the only thing worse
than bad memories
is no memories at all..
[dismemberment plan]
4.27.2003
A Few Afterthoughts.
Wow.
What a great weekend.
This has definitely been the best spring break I've ever had.
There's a lot of weird people on the train.
Sitting next to a fat person breating her warm ham-breath on your neck is the worst.
I was stalked by a crazy, small asian man for a short while at the train station
(Possibly an asian mafia henchman hired by my dad to keep tabs on me).
It was pretty cool.
Minigolf rocks, except for the part where I suck at it.
I am almost completely out of money.
And lastly:
Beer tastes like drinking a liquified loaf of carbonated bread.
So I left for Cornell up in Ithaca, NY with Jordan on Friday.
We made good time and got there in about 4 hours..
Which is amazing compared to my dad's 7 hour driving bonanza last summer.
We arrived at about noon, and just wandered around for a good long while.
On the "Dorm Tour," we checked out the standard cells..
Tiny, dark, very confining.
Just like every other college I'd visited up until that point.
There's also some dorms with themes.
Some are "foreign" dorms, where you only speak a foreign language, another is for art students..
Jordan and I got to see the "Jam" dorm, which is for music students.
And by "music students," I mean "black people."
I feel bad for the one inevitable loser suburbanite who was duped into signing up for the Jam dorm, crying into his pillow at night, listening to NIN (and wishing he were Trent Reznor, quipped Jordan).
They must have some craaaazy parties there, though, because their economy sized garbage can was filled to the brim with empty bottles of Smirnoff Ice.
Tee hee. :D
We later met up with Saleem, a current Cornell freshman, who was flying kites for the Bhangra club.
It was awesome seeing him.
Saleem graduated high school a year earlier than the rest of us.. bastard.
So we went out for dinner together.
The food: ALL YOU CAN EAT.
ORGASMIC.
Over the course of the two full hours we spent stuffing our faces , we consumed the following:
Mongolian stirfry
Rice
Fortune cookies
Pasta
Pancakes
Tuna melt
Fries
Pizza
Frozen yogurt
Ice cream cones
Cherry pie
Chocolate cake
Mocha cake
All in mass quantities.
It was beautiful.
The remainder of the night was squandered on just chilling, getting to know Leemy's peeps.
Then.
THE BHANGRA PARTY.
I have never witnessed so many Indian people smashed into one tiny room with a Foosball table in my entire life.
So much cheap wine, laptop speakers blasting out a hybrid of Indian music and subwoofer thuds.
Everyone felt the need to pick Jordan and me out of the crowd, ask us who we are, where we're from, and demanded that we Bhangra-dance.
I can't Bhangra dance!!!!
There I was, sitting at the table and minding my own business, deliberately not making eye contact with anyone..
Hell no, I will not Bhangra dance with you.
I was telling myself that being a self-appointed mopey wallflower would not be conducive to me having a good time.
But screw that.
I WAS NOT GOING TO BHANGRA DANCE.
So I continued to sit, shrugging off the hands that kept trying to pull me into the disastrous crowd, barely breathing in the hot, humid room with what seemed to be countless sweaty Indian people Bhangra dancing to the incessant, deafening music as the second hand on my watch seemed to tick backwards..
Saleem, for all I know, had the time of his life.
It's just not my scene, I guess.
The night spent on Saleem's floor was alright.
I woke up the earliest, I think, around 7:45am.
I guess my circadian rhythm is pretty solid, after years of my dad waking me up at 6am with a broomstick.
Hee hee.
I went into the hall bathroom, flipped on the lights..
My eyes were COMPLETELY bloodshot.
It looked like I was on the verge of crying blood.
Whoah.. Guess I needed some more sleep.
So I finally woke up at almost 1 in the afternoon.
I grabbed some breakfast with Jordan at another all-you-can-eat place.
This time wasn't so bad.. I made some waffles, and Jordan was rocking his Passover diet.
Some ugly, dirty-ass, neo-hippy girl with long, disgusting, blonde hair was hogging the ice cream scooper.
She was bent over the little freezer box, reaching down to get to the ice cream bin at the very bottom.
Not only did she have a vomit-inducing caboose, her dirty hair was getting into the ice cream!!!
Yeah, I skipped the ice cream that morning.
We hit a few more stops before making it home, again, in record time.
The main observations I made about Cornell University:
1. No hot chicks. Seriously, damn.
If I were a guy, my cock would have withered off, and my balls would have cowered in fear.
All of the girls were disgusting pseudo hippies, big-butted beasts, or asian anorexics.
Where were the hot, big boobied, blonde sorority babes?
Obviously, not at Cornell.
The guys were even worse.
I classified them as GLB's.. or "Goofy Looking Bastards."
2. Goofy Looking Bastards. The guys were either:
Disproportionate asians (big fat head, little body) with high tube socks, slim cut jeans, a bowlcut, humongous puffy basketball sneakers in weird colors, and backpacks worn up close to their necks,
Washed out pseduo-hippies (similar to the female variety indicated above), or
Ithaca hicks.
3. Impending Suicides If you haven't already heard, despite the administration's denials, Cornell has a pretty high suicide rate.
It's notorious for it's bridge across a waterfall..
Many students realize they can't stand it any longer and jump to their watery graves.
Upon meeting many of Cornell's undergraduate students, I saw that they, too, looked like they would be much more happy dead.
Also, upon meeting these students, I myself found that I would rather wish death upon myself than join them in this school.
All of them had sunken, dull eyes from what I imagine to be an unhealthy study:sleep ratio.
"Cooooome to Cornelllll" they beckoned, with their bony, zombie fingers.
Misery loves company.
They were trying to suck me into their black hole!
To the point of no return!
Sorry.
Don't get me wrong, Saleem definitely showed me a good time at his school, and I know that there's a lot to be proud of there.
But it's just not a place where I want to spend the next four years of my life.
I'd rather shoot myself in the face and have millions of people Bhangra-dancing on my grave, blasting Punjabi MC from their laptop speakers.
My dad looked at me, with shining eyes brimming with pride at his young 4 year old daughter.
My mom was washing dishes in the adjacent kitchen, looking on with a smile.
"What do YOU want to be when you grow up?"
It was the first time, I think, that anyone had ever asked me this question, expecting an actual answer.
Prior to this, when strangers asked me, I'd bury my face behind my mom's legs and cry.
It was a time before I had arrived in preschool or kindergarten, when the question, as I would notice, would be repeated all the time.
I thought about it briefly, and being a very shy, attention-seeking young girl, I thought about the one type of person that got the most gentle attention and love.
"A patient in the hospital," I replied, immediately wondering why there was not an illustration in this ABC book of a man with tattered, bloody clothes with a bruised, sad face, perhaps a victim of an automobile accident.
There was a crash at the kitchen sink from my mom dropping a dish in disbelief.
The sparkle in my dad's eye was gone, and his mouth was drawn in, forming a straight, lipless line of disapproval.
The high hopes and their perceived ambitions of me were gone.
And it was at that moment that I sealed my fate forever.
So, my genius mom continues to run the washing machine.
.. And just leaves the wet clothes on the floor.
Our laundry room is filled with piles and piles of wet, washed clothes.
I looked at one of my sweaters (which was, unfortunately, "dry clean only," by the way) that was lying on top of one of the piles.
I now am the proud owner of the smallest sweater in the world.
It would look more appropriate on a keychain or on a particularly well-dressed finger puppet.
Throughout my life I've been jealous of kids who have cool parents.
It is no coincidence that all of the kids I was jealous of were not asian.
Mine are asian and insane, both of which go hand in hand.
All asian parents suffer from this social stigma that they push their kids into studying night and day, never let their daughters out, have sons who enjoy raves and have spiky, dyed hair, hate their kids' friends, torture their children, are racist, and are completely, utterly crazy.
All of these are 100% true.
Help me. Please.
My dad's behavior can be dissected into three different groups:
1. Hates
2. Pissing and Moaning
3. Annoying
Hates My dad hates white people.
My dad hates black people.
My dad hates hispanic people. (Suffice it to say, my dad hates all whites and minorities with the exception of Koreans.)
My dad hates wastefulness. (I seriously think he uses toilet paper one square at a time.)
My dad hates everything.
Pissing and Moaning My dad pisses and moans about college. (Especially the part about how I didn't get in to just about all of them.)
My dad pisses and moans about schoolwork. (Especially the part about how I don't do any of it.)
My dad pisses and moans about scholarship applications.
My dad pisses and moans about the food we eat.
My dad pisses and moans about the weather.
My dad pisses and moans about me going to the movies ALL THE TIME (I have gone only one [ONE!!!!!] time this whole entire year.)
My dad pisses and moans about me hanging out with my friends ALL THE TIME. (See above.)
Annoying Behavior My dad likes to pop the lock on my room with a screwdriver because he doesn't believe in privacy.
My dad likes to follow me around in his car when I'm going somewhere. (This is done sneakily so I don't know that he's following me.)
My dad likes to call my cell phone when I'm out and leave numerous messages yelling at me to come home and study. (Study for what? I don't know.)
My dad likes to open my mail and read things and throw away letters before I read them.
My dad likes to listen in on my phone conversations.
My dad likes to compare me to students that are featured in Korean newspapers. (He cuts out articles and gives them to me.)
See, being asian doesn't only entail eating rice everyday, being really good at math, and having no absences from school.
(I have had only 2 since Kindergarten.. both instances were near-death, or so I like to claim.)
It also encompasses being socially crippled (because you're basically not allowed to have friends, let alone go out with them), having zero personality (probably due to being forced to study for school and the SAT's since approximately the second grade), and being "smart" but lacking all common sense.
There are two general ways to handle this.
1.
Develop into a nerd with coke-bottle glasses, pigeon toes,
wear nothing but sweat pants (or stretchy pants) of alternating colors with coordinating sweatshirts,
carry around a pocket calculator (or even better, have one of those calculator watches),
have no concept of musical tastes (except for classical music, which was learned from when parents forced you to take violin and piano lessons, simultaneously),
have no social life for the rest of your existence.
or, the more common alternative:
2.
Completely separate yourself from your authoritarian parents,
embrace the western culture,
hate your parents,
go out with as many dirty white boys as possible just to drive your parents crazy, (Well, "going out with white boys" primarily applies to asian girls, but can be used just as effectively if you are a boy, of course. Think about it.)
This actually depends on degree of severity.
Some girls take the second option to the highest degree, which in effect transforms them from Class Nerd 1999 into Class Asian Hooker 2002.
Which is altogether not such a bad thing, when you're weighing your options.
Both scenarios, however, can turn an asian girl into a cock-gobbling whore, in that in scenario 2, this eventual outcome is implied.
However, in scenario 1, social repression can become so severe that one completely lets loose when given the opportunity (re: college), going buck wild and becoming the village hooker.
Don't get me wrong though, I guess being asian has its perks.
Invincibility Unless you're the very conspicuous "raver" type or "Azn Invazn" type, rather than the typical bookish, nerdy type, you seriously NEVER get in trouble.
All of the teachers assume that you're the model of perfect behavior.
Therefore, being a quiet, unassuming asian student renders you invincible.
Seriously.
Feel free to run amok, wreak havoc, and incite riots to your whim, no one will ever suspect you.
The Illusion of being smart Everyone thinks you're smart.
Actually, this can be good or bad.
Though some people look to you with slack-jawed awe, this also means that everyone will want to mooch off of you or leech onto you for brain capacity.
Oftentimes, however, we're just not that smart and do not live up to expectations.
Sorry.
Amusing stories You can tell your friends fun stories from your childhood.
For example:
"Hey! Remember when my mom hit me with the pancake flipper and locked me in the closet for a week because I got a B on my book report?"
".. and then my parents bought me a violin, piano, cello, clarinet, and told me that if I couldn't teach myself how to play them professionally in three days, I would be disowned!"
"Hey! Remember the time my dad beat me with an umbrella? On my 7th birthday?"
"Isn't it weird how my dad has a total of 7 leg hairs (I really counted, he does), but has bushels of hair sprouting on his toes and out of his nose and ears?"
Oh.. being Korean is nothing but fun times.
There are a few sincerely funny incidents.
My dad is so clumsy.
He was convinced one summer that a tiny tree in our backyard was going to grow into a massive monstrosity, and that its roots would eventually crack the foundation of our house and cause it to cave in.
After many, many hours of chopping and sawing, he did cut it down--
-- but when it fell, it crushed (and killed) three apple trees that we'd bought for a lot of money and had planted the day before.
My dad was finally talked into buying a few patio bricks for our backyard.
Being the perfectionist he is, over the course of 1.5 hours, he checked about a total of 200 bricks, looking meticulously for cracks and roughness, as he carefully stacked about 40 bricks on a wimpy little shopping cart at Home Depot.
After purchasing them, we rolled the dinky cart towards the parking lot.
We got to the little ramp that goes from the sidewalk to the street.
The cart was obviously very top-heavy, and didn't look like it was going to make it down the ramp.
My dad refused to accept my offer to help and told me to get out of the way.
I complied, and he attempted to push it down himself.
I watched silently as the cart slowly tipped fowards and crashed on its front end, spilling out all 40 bricks, cracking all of them into pieces.
I watched 1.5 hours of my life, picking out perfect bricks, go to waste.
I didn't say anything but went back to Home Depot and began picking out new bricks.
One of the funniest sights I've seen is my mom fighting with our dryer.
It just recently started squeaking and squealing like a dying woman.
When it started squeaking particularly loudly one day, my tiny mom ran into the laundry room in a fit of rage, punching the sides of the dryer with her tiny clenched fists and kicking it with her tiny feet, screaming,
"WOULD YOU PLEASE BE QUIET!!! SHUT UP!!! WOULD YOU BE QUIET!!!!!"
I guess you had to be there to fully appreciate the humor in this situation.
Watching a little bubbleheaded asian lady viciously attacking an innocent dryer was something that I regret not being able to videotape and save to cherish later on in life.
Well boys and girls, I think this has been officially the longest post I've written.
Comments are appreciated, but of course, not required.
Well, Sex Ed came to a close on Monday..
The beautiful Ms. Mulvey wiped away tears from her grisled eyes at the thought of bidding us farewell.
Everyone apparently thought that playing the "Penis Game" would be the funniest thing ever.
(It's the game in which people say "PENIS!" progressively louder and louder in a public place. Oh, it's hi-larious.)
Penis. Penis! PENIS. PE-NIS! PEEEENIS!
Amongst all the shouts of "penis," a lone voice let out an uncertain "fallopian tubes!"
And then we played Porno Password for the rest of the class.
For the remaining 30 minutes of class, I did nothing but stare at an enormous wart growing on the ear of the very Neanderthal-esque girl sitting in front of me.
Also, my class is filled with a bunch of numbskulls.
We made a few more, too, but our sophomore efforts weren't good enough to get posted.
If you make a really good one, send me a link through email/IM/comments!
It'll be a little contest..
The best 3 will be posted whenever I procure three that are pretty funny.
On a separate note, it's funny how some people can totally make you into a quivering mess.
Case(s) in point (or, "Evidence that I am a huge spaz"):
A.
"So what are you cooking?"
"Oh, you know, some food."
B.
"When's your project due?"
"It's tue on Duesday."
"Tue on Duesday"???
There is much, much more that exemplifies how huge of a dork I am.
Seriously, damn.
Also, I heard back from all the colleges that I applied to earlier this school year.
For the horrible news, check out my college blog.
So, another thing in addition to your movie links that I want you guys to address in the comments is this:
Which would you choose:
1. NYU,
2. Rutgers, or
3. Cornell
Those of you that visited my site starting at 12:00 midnight and on got a glimpse of [this] page instead, which said that my parents were shipping me off to Korea to avoid the war.
A few of you were really cute and sent me some email and IMs, and I feel a little bad about saying this, but:
[Peek-a-Foo]