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A. I got my letter of acceptance from DePaul. I mean, it's not a surprise but its a relief.
B. I went to Iowa this past weekend. It's been about 5 or 6 years since I've been there; the last time was to visit Kelsey. David wanted to go to see the Laramie Project Epilogue and to see his Mom, who might not make it till Christmas, the next time he'll be there. We left on Saturday night after David closed Lush at Water Tower. We picked up stuff at two different apartments, and then hit the road. We stopped in Iowa City to stay with his friend Spencer that goes to school there, I had met his friend once before when we all went bowling. His heat was basically broken and it was freezing outside; it was unpleasant. The next day we left for Des Moines and met his parents for lunch at a place called Hu Hot. It was basically a Mongolian/Stir Crazy type place, so it was quite filling. We were going to stay with his friend Deb, so we drove to her house next. Deb is an older woman, maybe early to mid 40s. Their house was incredible and had a beautiful view of the forest behind it. They had a yellow lab named Roxanne who was adorable and would get angry with me everytime I stopped petting her. We pretty much hung out there the rest of the day, David and Deb and her kids went to a corn maze, but I desperately needed a nap so I took one, periodically being woken up by the dog licking me. That night Deb ordered us Italian food and made us the best drink I've ever had....It was a shot of peppermint schnapps in hot cocoa. You couldn't even taste the alcohol and given the weather it was just perfect. David and I stayed up watching some Will and Grace and we eventually fell asleep in the sleeping bags we had been provided, it was like a fun little sleep over. The next day we went with another of David's friends to lunch at Panera. Everyone loves David, he's kind of a celebrity in Des Moines, so it was fun to get this glimpse of his life. We went to see the Laramie Project epilogue that night at the Des Moines play house where David used to do shows. It was good, but I really wish I had seen the original Laramie Project first. After the show they had a Q and A session with the original cast in New York by satellite that they showed in the theater. Apparently David knows the original cast? I swear that kid is going to be famous one day. We left immediately after the show for Chicago, in total it took me about 7 hours till I got home, so that was a little rough on me the next day, but I'm still really glad I went.
C. As I write this people are loading stuff from my house into a truck. That truck is going to Tucson. I was together with my parents in that house for the last time last night, and it was just really, really heartbreaking. I've relied on my parents for so much over the last 20 years, and they've openly and willingly given everything they possibly could and then some more on top of that. But I think now more than ever I'm ready for them to be so far away. I guess I'm lucky that I've lived across oceans before, Tucson doesn't seem THAT far away. But, there will be no more coming home to my parents, no more getting the immediate help that they were so good at providing...oh well. I hope that one day I can be as good of a parent as they both have been to me. Before I left my house last night I went and sat in each of the three rooms that I've lived in (I've lived in all of them except the master bedroom.....I liked to switch things up). While I sat in the dark, since all the lights were gone, I thought about everything that had happened in each one. I never thought about all the crap that's gone down in that house. A large portion of two very significant relationships happened within those walls, a lot of good memories and a lot of bad memories a lot of fights with my parents. Just so many things, it was really overwhelming. When I loook back over the last five years I've really become a different person, but then in some ways I am remarkably the same. I used to say I Shanghai was where I grew up, because I basically suffered some sort of loss of innocence there. Now I think I'm going to start saying I grew up at 1405 Greenlake Drive.
What changes will apartment 204 bring? We'll have to wait and see!
- Location:LRC
"You do not know how much it saddens me to lose a gem like you. Would you please send me a formal notice through email so I can forward it to Dr. Bard and he can send it to his higher ups"
Ugh...I can't let myself feel bad about this. At least I know in the two years I've been here I've made a positive impression.
- Location:LRC
So, for that reason and more that I won't go into here, I will be a student of DePaul University come the winter of 2010, where I can major in Chinese studies, be surrounded by a city that I love, and have a new community of 15,000 undergraduates to interact with. Obviously, until June 30th I will still be living in Naperville, so I suppose it won't really feel complete until after that.
I only wish I had made this decision a year ago, then maybe a lot of things would never have come to be. Hopefully in the next 10 weeks I can adequately piece things together in preparation.
About two weeks ago I decided to be vegan. Why? More or less to experience something different, eat different food, expose myself to a different set of rules and restrictions, and to experience the life of a group of people for which I've always had many questions. First, I should clarify something. Vegetarian technically means no dairy and no eggs. Lacto-ovo vegetarians eat dairy and eggs, and pescatarians are not vegetarians. Vegan implies a lifestyle of not only not eating animal products directly, but not eating, wearing, or using anything that involved the harming or killing of an animal in any way. No leather shoes, no sugar that was processed in bone charcoal, no honey, no down pillows. I already own down pillows and leather shoes, and I'm not throwing them out. That being said, I'm doing everything else to the best of my abilities. Let me tell you, it's not easy. I knew eliminating meat wouldn't be that difficult, but I had no idea how difficult it would be to avoid dairy products and certain animal products. Whey protein is in EVERYTHING. Gelatin is in everything (and is made from the ligaments and bones of cattle and hogs). I pretty much had to search forever in whole foods to find a shampoo that would be acceptable. So, that's the first thing that's hit me in this whole experience. Animals are used for everything. Now, I'm not opposed to eating animals or using them in products, so I suppose I'm not really disgusted by this, just surprised. Here's a few examples of some ingredients you may not have known came from an animal:
Boneblack: Bone charcoal; A black pigment containing about 10% charcoal made by roasting bones in an airtight container. Used in aquarium filters and in refining cane sugar. In eye shadows and polishes.
rennet (an enzyme found in the stomach of calves, young goats, and lambs that's used in cheese-making)
Rennet: Rennin. From calves' stomachs. Used in cheesemaking, rennet custard (junket) and in many coagulated dairy products.
Shellac: The resinous secretion of the tiny lac insect. Used to coat fruits
Diglycerides: Monoglycerides. Glycerides. From animal fat. In margarines, cake mixes, confectionaries, foods, peanut butter, non-dairy coffee creamer, cosmetics, etc. Glycerin.
The second thing I've realized doing this is that vegans must be tempted to just not eat out altogether. I was at TGI Friday's for Pixie's birthday, and I was limited to two menu options: the chef's vegetable selection and the one salad that didn't come with meat. There weren't even any vegetarian designations on the menu, much less vegan designations (which I'm sure don't exist anyways). There are 12 million vegetarians in the US, they could at least do that. Or perhaps they just know to whom they're marketing...
More updates to follow. Basically, I'm going through vegetables and salad packages like there's no tomorrow, I picked cheese off pizza for the first time in my life, and they messed up my latte at caribou, gave me real milk, and I threw up.
I recently picked up a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child's not-a-bit-brief treatise on French cuisine. My goal for the summer is to go through as much of the book as possible so I can start building up a good reportoire of dishes I can make. French cooking techniques are said to be quite helpful when branching out into other cuisines. What's going to dissapoint me the most about this whole experience is that I can't possibly have people over every time I'm going to cook, meaning I can't share with everyone every time, and that's truly the best part. So in lieu of providing you with a meal, I will provide you with photos, descriptions, and samples upon request for those that live close enough and ask soon enough! Without further adieu, here we go (have I used enough French words yet?
Potage Parmentier
Leeks, potatoes, salt, water, and a little butter to finish. It was so simple, but it was so satisfying.
Clafouti
Fresh cherries baked in a batter of eggs, milk, sugar, and flour. The end result is kind of like a pudding. I liked it but I think I can do better.
Coming Next: Quiche au Fromage de Gruyère, Haricots Verts à la Crème
To achieve nuclear fusion, you have to heat a plasma to an incredibly high temperature and then the nuclei of the atoms can fuse, release energy, and generate power. BUT, you can also use this heat that you generate as a "fusion torch", throw waste into it, and have it be broken down into its elemental components. You can then seperate the elements and use them as raw materials! The book described it as recycling with a capital R. Indeed it is. So we could pretty much generate unlimited power using the most plentiful element in the universe (hydrogen) with not even any thermal pollution, and recycle all of our waste at the same time. That's just ridiculously awesome.
Today in Japanese we learned the "explaining" mode of speaking, which I'm adding to my list of Japanese ineffeciencies (although I still like the language and I'm sure people have similar lists with English). She picked pairs in the class where one member of the pair was to make some comment and the other member of the pair was to respond to that comment with an "explanation" of sorts. Limpar calls on me and Aimee. Aimee turns to me and, while I believe touching my arm: "Hansamu desu neeeeee!!!"
The class then explodes in laughter and then all of a sudden one girl is like "Hey wait!! Stop laughing!!"
It made my day.
Love,
Sam
- Music:Dan Savage's sexy voice
You are Will Riker
| At times you are self-centered but you have many friends. You love many women, but the right woman could get you to settle down.  |
- Music:Crystal Castles - Tell Me What to Swallow
Attach to the decorated CD a notecard explaining why each song is important to you, why it made the difference at that point in your life or why it helps when you're upset, so on and so forth.
And now, this private CD that is essentially an intimate and deep piece of you....give it to someone you care about, maybe to someone that also knows me, and then we can get a trade going.
It'll be fun, I promise.
"It wiill amzae you to feeel yoour new eerction"
I'm so amzaed already.
A little while back the international programs office announced a photo contest for student's that studied abroad. I felt like i really grew into photography on the China/Japan trip, and I felt like i had made a lot of progress in terms of my eye for a good picture, so on and so forth, ever since Zachary more or less introduced me to the whole idea of photography as a hobby. So, suffice it to say I was quite excited about the opportunity to be able to actually submit something for someone to judge. They announced the winners today; they said about 60 photos were submitted, there were prizes for first, second, and third place, and they gave either six or eight honorable mentions, I wasn't in any of it. I know it's just a contest at school, and I know that my photos didn't really look like "study abroad" photos, for the most part there wasn't really anything foreign about them, and I think that's why i didn't get anything. Nonetheless, when I read the names and saw that I wasn't mentioned it felt like someone punched me in the stomach. It shouldn't matter to me; I know I only want to be recognized for something that I feel I've put a lot of work and effort and thought into, and dont' we all? I don't think I need to win a contest, or even be mentioned honorably to confirm that I should be doing something that I enjoy doing, something that makes me feel good and makes me notice beautiful things around me all the time. But, it still hurts a little.
I was looking over the photos that I sent in, and then looking over the photos I had WANTED to send in before consulting with my parents, I don't think it would have made a difference which ones I sent in, but just looking at them made me happy. I'm really proud of myself for taking those photos, I'm very happy to call them mine. And you know, if I would have placed, someone else wouldn't have. Maybe they feel just as strongly as I do, and maybe they feel gratified and maybe they need this and they deserve this? I wouldn't want to take that away from someone. So, congratulations to the two people that I know that won, Zachary and Amanda, you both deserve it, I'm consistently amazed by your artistic abilities. Zachary, make more art.
Here they are.
( Here they are... )
This past weekend actually turned out surprisingly well. I had been trying to make it as full as possible, and no plans ended up falling through so I was largely successful.
Let's start with Friday. I did the usual morning class routine, then ran to catch a 5:05 train to Chicago to see David after my class got out at 3:50. Fortunately (perhaps) the trains were all running late, so at 5:10 I got on a 4:45-ish train that was just getting there. Upon arriving in Chicago, I successfully navigated my way to the red line on State Street. I've always been really bad at getting around in Chicago, so I was quite pleased with myself when I arrived at the Fullerton stop with no problems. Now, for the people that don't know (of which there are probably many) David is a guy that I met through Kelsey, who I knew in China. I didn't know anyone gay that was my age, so she gave me his screen name and we started talking, and have pretty much been talking online ever since I was in 8th grade. We had met once before in Iowa when I was visiting Kelsey, and haven't seen each other since then. That was about four and a half years ago. So, it was quite exciting to see him after all this time. He looked just like the David I remember, but more like an adult. It's strange how people retain this essence in their appearance as they grow up. After he met me, we took a 15 minute walk to his apartment that's located quite close to the Lincoln Park DePaul campus. His apartment is quite nice, and I finally got to meet Peter, his boyfriend of several years. We debated for a little bit about what to eat, and eventually decided on pizza, which was ordered and eaten while we watched "Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything". It was about three drag queens that travel by car across the country to Hollywood to enter a drag queen competition. They get stuck in a small town in Nebraska, where "they are changed by the town, and the town is changed by them" or so said the movie synopsis. It was quite funny, but quite ridiculous. After the movie we went to a Hookah bar, the same one that I went to with Zachary a little under a year ago before we saw "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind". This time, however, we actually got to sit in one of the cushiony little curtained off rooms. We tried a new flavor that the waitress recommended, the Nelson Mandela. I think it was passion fruit, papaya, and...blackberry? It was delicious, and usually I don't care that much for the flavors, I just enjoy the activity.
David had to be somewhere at 7 the next morning, so I left after that and got on an 11:40 train after taking a wonderful and relaxing walk down the Chicago river to Union Station. Chicago amazes me with its architectural beauty every time I go down there, I can never seem to get enough of it. All in all, it was a great night and wonderful, as it should be, to reconnect with an old friend.
On Saturday I awoke to find that my parents had left to look at cars, and TVs. I was not invited. My parents don't know me, haha. They picked me up eventually and we went to Whole Foods for some samples and grocery shopping; it seems to have become a weekly event, which is fine by me as I don't get to do that much with my parents. After that, I needed to go running but it was both cold and moderately rainy outside. The thought of running on the treadmill again was just unappealing, so I put on some heavier clothes and ran outside. I've been managing about 3.5 miles lately, where I run about 1.5 of them. It's quite good for me, I think, but I really need to quit smoking so I can push it even further, I feel like it's causing me to hit a plateau. I did weights after the run, and then showered and went to pick up Vince. We made T-shirts that say 怎麽辦 (What do I do?) on them, and both wore them in class on Monday. 傅老師 got a kick out of it.
On Sunday I woke up moderately early and did some homework before going to see Lauren at Panera around six. We studied, had coffee ,and met up with Tiffany and then at around seven went to Jimmy's house to play Clue, Trivial Pursuit, and Cranium. I sucked majorly at trivial pursuit and clue (Trivial Pursuit for obvious reasons and Clue because I wasn't quite getting the hang of the strategy until the end). For cranium we split into Team Gay (Lauren and I) and Team Straight (Jimmy and Tiffany). I'm happy to say the gays kicked ass. That game can actually be a lot of fun, until you have to hum a song you've never heard in your life. I had to go home after that to take care of Zack (my parents were staying at my Grandmother's in Skokie), and I managed to convince Jimmy and Lauren to come and stay the night. We played some more games, I made some food, and we watched the Simpsons Movie and then the most recent Futurama movie until what must have been 5 or 6 in the morning. Fortunately, Aimee texted me to let me know that Japanese was cancelled in the morning so I got to sleep a little longer.
Well, it's week 10. Time to kick it into gear.
I suppose I'm just going to post something so that I can get pack into the habit of posting regularly. I get jealous of reading everyone else's interesting journals and having nothing posted myself. I doubt I need to fill anyone in on everything that's happened since my last post; you wouldn't have time to read it anyways.
Everything lately seems to be a rough time for me, but I'm convinced that I'm doing it to myself. So these are my goals. When I look back at this next year, I want to see them done.
- Pick a major, and be happy with it.
-Stop procrastinating.
-Expand my abilities in photography and put myself outside of my comfort zone.
-Be able to carry on a conversation in Chinese so as to actually be able to maintain a friendship with a Chinese person.
-Quit smoking.
-Get into a regular, and not flakey, pattern of working out.
-Learn to be single.
Bye for now.
- Music:Cut Copy - Unforgettable Season
"Adjectival verbs can occur in yes-no questions formed by 吗/嗎 ma or the verb-not-verb structure."
Alright, I haven't posted anything except pictures on Facebook, so some of you....okay like one or two of you, probably don't know what's going on in China. Well....suffice it to say i have more than 20 hours of class a week, homework, and a crap load of stuff to go out and do and experience! so I haven't really felt like sitting down and writing, although I miss everyone and everything in the US terribly. I'll try and post something soon, i'm only in China till october 24th, then I leave for Japan. I hope everyone's having a good time either back in the US or studying abroad in Japan/wherever. Well, all of you are in Japan.
I was thinking about it.... maybe we just don't have anything to prove, and know there are better things to spend money on?
Apparently most estimates for the cost of the opening ceremonies were around $100 million. Money well spent? I think maybe it was. I think people don't really respect China or Chinese people. They tend to think that its just some country where all their crap is made, and on top of that they think the stuff is of poor quality. Maybe the spectacle that was the opening ceremonies will get them some deserved respect. On the other hand, maybe spending that $100 million on something that would more directly benefit the PRC would get them even more respect. I don't really know.
The world is not composed of one thing, it is a collection, a conglomeration of things that can never be explained by only one way of thinking and one way of seeing. The world is interdisciplinary, and that’s how your education should be constructed.
Guacamole: self explanatory and delicious.
Soup: with ham, bacon, bits of sausage, jalapeno, and cilantro. I must be forgetting something, it was too good to be so few things.
Tostadas: with refried black beans, lettuce, shredded chicken, queso fresco, and mexican hot sauce as topping. They were amazing.
And to top it off, she put together a dessert of vanilla ice cream with burnt caramel sauce, also delicious.
I'm glad I know people that know how to make authentic food from where they're from, be it Japanese, Greek, or Mexican, or anything else. The food tonight made me realize how I seem to not take advantage of all the Mexican culture that's so accessible to me.
I think I need to put together an all-swedish dinner party to return the favor. Get ready for your invitation.
-Lamentations 3:22-23
And then everything made sense.
