If life isn\’t the way it should be, then why are we all still living it? I think it\’s because of that glimmer of hope. That it could be possibly the way we thought it would be.

I am never going to have a $30 dinner. My grandmother slipped $300 into my sister\’s pocket, whispering do not tell your mother. One half was for her and the other half was me. And I ridiculously spent $30 today. Out of a sudden urge to splurge, I went with two friends to the 4th avenue district to Spenger\’s Fish Grotto. There I had my user study. And a $10.90 raw oyster plate (split with my friends), a $4 cup of clam chowder and a $20 mixed seafood grill plate. Not worth my $30 considering the server was slow in serving us. But all worth it to spend time with these people that I may barely see next year.

To my disappointment, Heathers wasn\’t a movie that summarized my entire Heather incident. I had thought it was going to be somewhat similar to Welcome to the Dollhouse. But unfortunately it wasn\’t.

My sister borrowed the video from the library. It\’s about the seventh movie I have watched in the last 2 days. A movie fest consisting of films like Old School, Thirteen, Enough, Pirates of the Carribean, Love Actually (yes again), Waking Ned Devine, The Graduate, Crazy/Beautiful…

I didn\’t realize how tired I was from a lack of sleep, last night reading The Da Vinci Code (surprisingly, it\’s a good novel with a well-researched, mythological story entwined with a modern-day thriller – it reminded me of why I wanted to be a writer a long time ago). When I met with the graduate student I am doing research with, I started being more uncoordinated than usual. Were my nerves that shot? I tangled my backpack with the chair. I almost tripped over myself a few times on the way out. For all I know, I could have walked into the traffic on Hearst Avenue in a half-dazed mode.

Some people say that how it is to be drunk. I don\’t think so.

For the last few days, I have been obsessed with my MBTI result of being an INFJ. The Meyers-Briggs test is a personality test. Apparently, an INFJ is the most rarest personality type. And it\’s also the personality type that most often has the ability for ESP. Most often, they\’re people that are characterized as Oracles or prophets.

Me? Funny that it feels good to be part of a minority of the population – 1%! Take the test here. Apparently, the best companion for me is someone with the opposite perosonality type. A ESFP. But that seems like someone who is a frat boy.

Edit: more personality types!

I am currently sitting in a resident\’s room, fixing a computer. I was able to boot up from Knoppix (a fantastic recovery utility that also allows me to go on the Internet). But of course this is the resident that wants as much as possible from her corrupted hard drive. (Read: 5 gigabytes of music and videos). Transferring data never felt so horrible.

Funny thing was that the resident squealed outloud when she wanted to use her roommates\’ computers, \”WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE TO HAVE PASSWORDS!\”

To keep people like you out? Maybe. Even in my apartment with one other trustworthy roommate, I keep my computer password protected. Just in case.

I slept only 4 hours yesterday. Not only were my neighbors being loud (apparently some people really need to shout when they\’re having sex) but I was struggling with allergies. With the onset of warm weather in the Bay Area, comes the immense flow of pollen. *sneeze*

I think I need flonase.

~

Any place you leave. Even for a day. Or a week. You walk away missing some people more than others.

My spring break starts…now.

Being a freeloader, I went to Sproul Plaza and swung by the Seniors Only tent. And just for showing up, I got a Krispy Kreme donut. A pen. Some handouts for ordering grad packs (expensive grad packs, mind you). And I was ushered into a line to get a photo with Oski.

If you can\’t tell, my eyes are closed. The photographer caught me in a bad time as I took off my sunglasses for the picture. But I got to stand next to Oski, the funny walking mascot…bear (the identity of the person of Oski is protected by the secret Oski committee)! I didn\’t shake the polaroid picture despite how many times Andre 3000 has told me to do it in the last few months. But for that lunch hour, I felt like I was feeling like a graduating senior. First hit of nostalgia.

Happy St. Patrick\’s Day!

I think the layout is GREEN enough, don\’t you think?

Recently, one of my friends told me how she would miss Berkeley a lot when she graduates this May. In response, I said that I was ready to get out of this town, this campus, this world of people. But as I was walking through the main street in Berkeley, I heard one of the bums (didn\’t seem homeless though) cry, \”That ladies and gentlemen is not Bank of America. That is Bank of Daddy.\” As several other people passed, he repeated again loudly, \”That is Bank of Daddy!!!\”

Little things like that. How often will I get to hear such cries of protest in Pittsburgh, a city of cold gray weather.

On Monday, I was talking to the graduate student I research with about how I was wary about the cold weather I would face next year. That there would be…SNOW! The other students in the room were commenting, Only in California, do you go to the snow. The snow does not go to you. Jason the graduate student is well-travelled, to note. He then asked me, \”What\’s the farthest north you have ever lived?\”

Very naively, I said, \”Hercules.\”

\”Where\’s that?\”

\”It\’s up north…12 miles,\” I responded.

He laughed. Snow snow snow!!!

Also, because I am one of those indifferent students, I am reluctant to respond to this survey about the decision to move the drop deadline to the 3rd week of classes instead of the 8th week. It\’s not going to affect me, so why do I care? Maybe for the future students? All I know is that I dropped my stat class and I sort of regret it, because it\’s one of the prereqs for the CMU program (I dropped it because I didn\’t think they would accept me). But I digress, I don\’t care about the drop deadline ultimately!!

It\’s interesting that I don\’t need a quiet environment to study, but I need a quiet environment to sleep. Too bad construction next door starts at 7 in the morning and there\’s nothing I can do, except complain here (apparently, the city ordinaces allow them to start construction work at 7 am!) Spring break for me is almost here…almost…