stranded in SF

Vin convinced me to tag along with him to the Academy of Art University last night / early this morning. I really didn’t want to go because I never signed up and I didn’t have an I.D. card, but he said it was okay, that it’d be fine. He said that half the classes usually don’t show up anyway, so there will be space, and if the teacher is chill, we could take part in the lesson. he wanted to do two classes, at least 3 hours each. the first one was fine, but i wasn’t even allowed to go into the elevator for the second one. I mean I totally respect the receptionist of the building for the second lesson, but I felt that he was really unreasonable. The previous receptionist for lesson one was pretty chill about me coming in and out, but I guess when you don’t have a workshop ID, you shouldn’t even be allowed in. that’s fine, but I was pretty pissed for what happened next…

getting nowhere, I decided to let Vin go on alone and take the workshop for fashion design, but that would mean that i would have to hang around. by myself. FOR 3 HOURS. i was half-expecting him to – at the very least – offer to skip the class as well. when he didn’t and heartily went ahead, I felt abandoned. I was like, REALLY????

you drag me all the way here to san francisco, make me pay $12 for a bart ticket, $6 for a mini charcoal sketching pad that i will never use again (for lesson one), particpate in a workshop (lesson one) in which i didn’t really learn anything [thus wasting 3 hours], make me walk around in flats ["oh flats are fine. i see girls in the workshops wear heels"], be a jerk and walk quickly [thus leaving me behind], drag me to a gazillion shops with $200 / tshirt price tags [clothes i will never be able to afford], AND YOU THINK IT’S OKAY TO JUST LEAVE ME HERE ALONE?

okay, obviously i’m pissed and bitter. i spent 2 hours by myself sitting on a bench in the cold (no point going inside a restaurant since i’m too poor to buy food or clothes + feet hurt really bad). eventually, i decided it would be nice to do something, so i began working in a straight line, hoping to make a U-turn and walk back (and thus kill ~30 minutes despite the feet pain). i got a call from Jen whom we met serendipitously on the street today (she actually takes summer classes at AAU), and we decided to meet up. unfortunately, her call distracted me, making me forget which way I came from.  For the next 1 1/2 hours i was lost on the streets of SF, going increasingly in the wrong direction from Montgomery. Eventually, we found each other and caught up.

All in all, i hated today. i wasted money. i wasted time. i could’ve spared myself the pain, the regret, the already low amount of cash.

78 / ghosts

went to my grandmother’s 78th birthday party yesterday. the whole event was tumultuous to say the least. although my closest cousins and i were in a room the entire time, it wasn’t hard to notice that yelling was going on. apparently, it was about the Vietnam house and money… no surprise there. for the past two years, the adults have been feuding and there’s a real split in the family. my aunt who stayed in vietnam – with persuasion from my other aunt (by marriage) – sold the vietnam house two years ago. it was the family house on my mother’s side and the home of my grandmother for a number of years. it was there for memory’s sake as well as a place for members of the family to stay if they were ever in vietnam. anyways, she sold it to pay off $10,000 (US dollars) debt and kept all the profit i believe. my grandmother was obviously heartbroken and all the siblings (my aunts and uncles) were furious that she did it without their consent, notwithstanding the fact that she racked up so much debt on her debut to america. fists were exchanged (my youngest aunt was held down my the in-law aunt [stated above] and the other aunt [who sold the house] punched her, but i’m not sure if it was more than once. probably).

obviously because it was grandmom’s birthday, the two families that we’ve barely had any connection with for the past two years (except for some visits here and there; my mother likes to stay neutral) were invited. an uproar emerged when the topic of money came up. the aunt who sold the house was apparently asking for help, and her daughter [apparently] had the nerve to say, “you never help out my mom! you’re all rich and you don’t help us out!”

SAY WHAT?!

my aunts and uncles have been helping them out as far as i know. they let the pair live with them, lend them money, etc. my mom even said, “we aren’t rich [we really aren't! my mom works for meager pay and my dad lost his job]. she was the one who decided to stay in Vietnam with her man. if she left earlier like we did perhaps she find herself so ‘poor’”. the majority of my mom’s family came to america during the late ’70s / early ’80s.

so yea. lots of family drama. the party itself was fine. food was pretty good; the cake… was jello! why??! xD

at the party, my cousin Ro reminded me of stories of haunted dolls with given names. she mentioned them before but i didn’t really pay them any mind. when i got home, i started looking up ‘robert’ and ‘annabelle’ after watching MISS MARPLE. it got me so spooked because i was reading them at night, but i haven’t been able to stop looking at sites about haunted dolls and horror vids all day (i even watched two episodes of A HAUNTING with poorly acted dialogue on discovery channel. what a waste of time!).

escape through movies

recently, my routine is:

- wake up at 10am, watch fraiser
- brush teeth, turn on laptop
- watch a film
- 3pm, eat and watch Macolm in the Middle
- let the laptop cool off for a little while so watch some more tv
- after sufficient time and if there’s nothing on that night, watch another movie

it’s pretty sad. i’ve watched 5 films in the last two days. it might be even more, but i’ve sort of lost count.

LA FEMME NIKITA: 8 / 10 ][ french ][ 1990 ][ plot: Junkie Nikita gets a second chance at life when the government choose to train her to be a spy rather than let her rot in prison. spunky and emotional, she prevails as a femme fatale, but finding the balance within her double life proves to be harder than expected.

not bad. i liked the action and nikita was a babe. i would've loved it if the sexual tension between her and bob got on (a kiss is not enough!). the music was pretty shitty though.

CARNAGE: 6 / 10 ][ french / spanish ][ 2002?][ plot: Six degrees of seperation. A bull fights for its life as it fatally wounds a bull fighter. it is subsequently slaughtered with its remains - its eyes, horns, meat, bones - being put to full use, linking the lives of 6 individuals whose laps they serendipitously fall unto.

it was more than 2 hours of - to be frank - boring. i don't know why it won the prix de la jeunesse at Cannes. i mean, yea i guess it's deep, but it's just so hacked up. the six degrees of seperation was very loose and some of the characters' trials were idiotic.

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE : 10 / 10][ 1995 ][ plot: Poor little Dawn Weiner. The social outcast in the home as well as in school, Dawn is a loner, save her fledgling friendship with her younger neighbor. DOLLHOUSE illuminates the bleakness of suburbia while it highlights the emotionally troubled bully, sibling rivalry, distant parents, and perhaps the typical quirks of being the weirdo in school.

i watched this film a helluva long time ago when i was in elementary school. watching it now... i guess i can sort of relate. but Dawn - i can't say that she doesn't deserve all of the shit she gets. she's a pretty big bitch herself, but who could blame her? her life is pretty messed up. anyhoo~ fantastic film with lots of great irony and sympathic "oh-gees!"

FAT GIRL: 9 / 10 ][ french ][ 2001 ][ plot: Preteen Anais is fat while her older sister Elena is the physical embodiment of classic beauty. while on vacation, Elena becomes seduced by a fellow tourist, a much older Italian law student. Anais must tag along and witness this fledgling romance as she battles with sibling rivalry, her sexuality, and the concept of love.

It might be a 10 / 10, but i don't know if i'm confusing pure genius with 'interesting'. there's a lot - and i mean A LOT - of nudity in this film. a lot more than i expected. again, it's just very interesting. sometimes you feel very sorry for Anais because she's the ugly duckling (will she become a swan?), but you can see that she doesn't entirely hate her sister; she doesn't really push all the blame unto her sister for her shitty existence. Elena has quite a lot of depth and she truely loves her sister, which makes it hard to completely hate her. I appreciate that, but the whole naive-thing is pretty overdone (but considering she's 15 i guess it's plausible). by the way, i love the juxtaposition between Elena and Anais. Not just the physical stuff, but Anais' realism versus Elena's naïvete, the former desiring to lose her virginity with a nobody and the latter choosing someone whom she loves, etc.

HAPPINESS: 7 / 10 ][ english ][ 1998 ][ plot: the portrayal of the lives of 3 sisters and those that are involved with them. there's Trish who 'has it all', but unbeknowest to her, her husband is actually a closet pedophile. there's Joy who has social, romantic, and self-esteem problems. already 30 years old, her family believes she's destined to fail, and the only thing she can do is attempt to change her life. and there's Helen, a successful but poseur author who lacks authenticity in the (literally) crap she writes. when you mix in seperating parents, a freakish neighbor who loves to jerk off, a psycho who kills a doorman and hacks his body into pieces, and a foreigner who loves the five-finger discount, you get HAPPINESS, another black comedy / drama by Solondz (DOLLHOUSE).

not bad, but not great. very controversial content and i liked the way the dealt with it. in the end, everything’s pretty much messed up… which makes sense considering all the characters are heavily, heavily flawed (or just human).

dreams (when you sleep)

i had the weirdest dream last night. it was a typical sort of ’slice of life’ dream (in other words, high school-related). isn’t it weird when things are slightly bizarre but you can’t tell the difference? you don’t realize you’re in a dream because it’s either really deep sleep or the events aren’t too weird that they would warrant some suspicion?

my dream last night consisted of all my innate desires like a second prom with the ex-boyfriend who i still have feelings for or recognition of the popular (but not really cute) boy Bran who I’ve always had a tiny, tiny crush on. There were red flags that everything was too surreal; i just didn’t care. ironically i never even made it to the second prom to dance with Farouk. The whole dream was my quest to finish the art club painting and rush over there before the night was over.

first clue: allusion to cinderella

i wasn’t really going to make it, so i had to run down three flights of stairs to the building restroom.

second clue: school buildings are only 2 stories high

i was rushing so bad that i didn’t mind that my bare feet were touching the restroom floor nor did i really care (i was actually elated) when Bran was in the girls’ restroom checking me out in my dress.

third clue: that would only happen in my dreams (except i didn’t realize it at the time)

while i was making my way there, the campus turned into my elementary school and the ticket collector was the weird OCD asian man at the local library. he informed me that tickets were $19 (way too cheap for a 2nd ‘prom’). i subsequently got a call from a friend’s dad who called to ask me where she was. firstly, it was weird that he even had my number as i have never met him. secondly, he spoke in perfect english, but then as he went on his english became distorted and started to sound like chinese pidgin.

fourth clue: string of weird events

then i woke up. i realized i was dreaming and went to sleep (only to dream about a model whose clothes are practical for all seasons).

is she really going senile?

is she really going out with him? no, because she has nobody (◔ ◡ ◔)

anyhoo, my sister is convinced that there is something mentally wrong with our mother. and i can’t say that she’s acting ridiculous because mom gets weirder every year. i feel really bad for my dad. he takes her shit all the time, and they’re currently fighting. fighting is nothing new in this household, but i’ve noticed a change in my dad. now he just takes it. he doesn’t fight back or anything; he just complains that she’s acting ridiculous. and he has his points. today mom totally flipped out when dad was eating noodles and not her sour soup (viet dish). she went on a rampage, yelling so loud that my sister left the house to just clear her head.

and earlier she just sitting on her fat ass bossing my dad around. i feel so sad for him sometimes. every marriage has its faults but i really do wish she would understand how much she takes him for granted. he does a lot (he’s always trying to please, to the point where he’s really, REALLY annoying) and she doesn’t really see how much. and he spends a lot on her too. he indulges her korean drama-burning craze buying her at least 4 burners because she’s always dissatisfied with them.

*sigh*

is she really going senile? maybe.

for the last two days

I recently watched the 1959 French film EYES WITHOUT A FACE, a story about a facially disfigured young woman and her surgeon father’s quest to ‘heal’ his daughter. As the disappearance of pretty, young, blonde and blue-eyed girls begin to pile, the stress of being literally face-less, the guilt of the lives lost – the solitude – takes its toll on poor Christiane.

I came across the film a few months prior when I was reading up on face transplants. Wikipedia cited Les Yeux sans visage as a ground-breaking film depicting the act of face transplants; although quite radical in its delivery of the process, the concept was pretty spot-on (apparently). Personally, I liked the film. I thought the special effects were pretty rad, considering this was a time before CG.

I also watched part of the Michael Jackson memorial service (it was practically on every channel). 3/4 through, i went to the gym and watched the rest at the YMCA. i actually shed some tears at the very end when his daughter Paris was speaking. it was so sad!

other than that, i haven’t really been doing anything but sleep and promise myself that i’ll go to the library tomorrow. i never actually do it though. and even though it’s past july 4th, i still hear the sound of fireworks going off every now and then. i like to imagine that they are for MJ.

i had a shitty july 4th, son!

I didn’t do much of anything on the 4th of july this year (asian families just aren’t ecstatic about it). it most mostly spent watching movies and watching porn. uneventful? very! my sister left for a barbeque at 10AM. it is almost july 5th at this point in the post. i wouldn’t say that i am more uninhibited with her out of the house, but i am definitely more of a coach potato. not that i should blame her.

so anyway, i watched ANALYZE THAT this morning because it was on tv. it pretty much sucked. i didn’t watch the prequel so i don’t know if de Niro was out of character. if he wasn’t, then let’s just say that Vitti was so archetypical. i wish Kudrow had a bigger role too. her character, as the voice of reason, should have more screen time to create an even bigger contrast to how unbelievably eccentric the plot was getting. i was like, “really? do you really want to go there?” the whole time. it wasn’t worth the time i spent watching it.

also watched DECEIT, a lifetime movie. it was so hilarious!! the acting was horrible! most of the actors’ dialogue was too scripted, especially the two female investigators. the director and the producer or whatever tried to make it look cool with the whole ‘recounting events’ execution of the story and close ups on the narrator’s eye. which brings to mention – what a horrible, horrible main character. the actor really fell flat on delivering his lines which only made it worse. but you know the what the worst part of it was? no, it wasn’t having some random british guy to play the abusive best friend. it was the cop-out at the end when it turns out the whorish emily is a lesbian and that she and her lover spent approx. the last 7 years planning this wildly flawed get-rich-quick scheme.

also re-watched PRACTICAL MAGIC, X-MAN: THE LAST STAND, and some SEX AND THE CITY episodes.

i wonder what the day would have been like if i left the house, much less strayed from the computer / television screen?

oh so typical!

another friday has passed in a long line of fridays. i didn’t do much except eat, drink, and sleep. again. so where am i currently? no job, no lover, no money (i checked and i have $31 in my checking account)… no life! as per usual, the sister is gone; she’s off clubbing with her friends. and i am here alone. poor and bored outta my mind! please, someone save me from my misery.

LOLZCATS.

the heat is pretty shitty too.

because i need PS to look half-decent

that was shitty corn

yea i just had some corn that’s been sitting in our freezer for the past 3 months. mom defrosted it today and served it to us. it tasted… not foul, but not good. very starchy. geez. i haven’t really been doing anything but laying on my ass. literally. after watching two episodes of MISS MARPLE, i woke up watched some FRAISER and then watched practically the complete first cycle of AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL. it’s funny (or sad?) how Adrienne is more of a reality show personality than she ever was a model. but at least she’s still making a living. *sigh* i’m still avoiding studying for my driver’s permit. but to my defense, i did spend 7 hrs at the library downtown. although i didn’t finish reading the handbook (at times i would just doze off), i did completed about 1/3 of it.

so what has my life been up to lately? not much. my cousin Ro came over for a ‘girl’s weekend’ on mid tuesday to early wednesday. we didn’t do much except just sweat in the heat and watch movies. we actually got to see THE HANGOVER. let me tell you, it was good! i mean, i was expecting it, but it definitely exceeded what i had in mind. it was definitely worth it. it was funny because Ro and I were going to watch YEAR ONE before we checked the reviews. 13% on rotten tomatoes and all-around Ds on yahoo. it looked pretty bleak so we chose HANGOVER in the end. i thought it was quite cute when she was all god-smacked about the male nudity in / after the film. i don’t want to sound like a wise-ass, but when you watch a lot of movies, you tend to come across some dicks… just not as many boobs though.

so anyhoo~ after we got back from the mall around 8pm, we rented INKHEART from the red box. i was very apprehensive about it just because it didn’t look good. boy was i wrong! i know, i know. INKHEART is generic, it’s kiddy, it’s juevnille, but it isn’t all bad. i mean, yea, it’s typical, but it’s actually a pretty good film. the graphics, the good-naturedness of it… i actually enjoyed it. the acting could have been better, but again, it wasn’t horrible. i was actually surprised to see how star-studded the cast was.

the only negative thing i can say about the whole girl’s day out was Ro’s typical refusal to eat any of my food. she absolutely hates my mother’s cooking. i’ve always been a bit offended because it’s like, “really? are you not going to eat anything because you just can’t stand to force-feed yourself some decent home-cooking?” but it’s okay. in fact, i felt kind of bad that she had to starve herself until we got to the mall to eat some McDonald’s because she hasn’t eaten all day (and won’t eat anything at my place unless it was store-bought). to each his own.

Vector / Cutco, a scam?

i’ve been half-looking for a summer job for ages. up and out of nowhere, i get this job interview. it turns out my friend Vin referred me for a job as a sales rep for Vector Marketing Corp. Immediately I’m roped into a 5pm interview later today. I was absolutely fucking god-smacked. I was so goddamn thankful to Vin to have given my name to a bunch of strangers. It was like a rush of adrenaline. As if the interview was in one hour and not five, I ran around the house trying to do 3 things at once. I desperately looked for a suitable, professional outfit. I had to get on my laptop to ask Vin what Vector was about and how was his interview. and I needed to take a bath. I haven’t bathed regularly since I got back from New York. It’s not like I’m going anywhere in the next week, so I usually take a bath every 3 days or somethings. Hey! I know what you’re thinking!! Well, here in SJ, CA we’re short on water. I might as well do my part.

So anyways, for a base pay of $16.50/hr, who wouldn’t get excited? Took a bath and shaved my legs (haven’t done that in like a 3 months… I only do it for special occasions) and then hurried to my laptop. I began researching Vector; I want to be prepared for my interview. First thing I thought when I first read they that sell Cutco knives was “OK. Knives. This sounds kind of familiar.” Flashback to memories of my sister saying she had a job interview and coming home disheartened when she says, “I’m not selling no knives” and to a memory of a high school boy going door-to-door selling knives in a box.

Hmmm…. fishy? Just a tad.

After a lot more research on forums, I just became totally disenchanted with the whole idea. I promptly cancelled my interview on the grounds that my “parents dissuaded me.” A cop-out, I know, but whatever. I wouldn’t say that it was a scam for sure, just a pyramid scheme or something? Because the woman on the phone said no ‘door-to-door’ but that’s essentially what you will be doing as a sales rep. Having to pay $150 + tax on a set of knives to study was also a turn off.

In the end I guess the job wasn’t for me. It wasn’t worth the money and the gas and the possible stress that was going to be spent on it. I’ve read that they target youths because we lack experience so we’ll jump for anything that pays, no less a job that pays $16.50/ hr (my dad didn’t even make that much when he had a job). It turns out that they just don’t mention a lot of important details right off the bat, making people assume / accertain that it is a scam. Again, it wasn’t for me. I’m not one to beg my relatives to buy some shit that they can pay $5 at the local asian market. I don’t have enough confidence to market and spew something I don’t believe. I’m really just looking for a job that pays what they advertise; an 8-hr job that pays me hourly, not based on commissions. I am not a commission person.

It was funny because during my research I came across a web petition against Vector Management. It said “friends do not refer friends to Vector; they do not let them work for Vector.” It was almost as if Vin sold me out the way they put it. I don’t think he did. I think the gesture was nice; I’m just not Vector material. The whole experience has, however, given life to my effort to finding a job once again. My dream summer job? working at a super market. Now that would be heaven!