Considering how I much I love this thing called the Internet, I am definitely going to have a baby blog (if I ever have one). Some people think it is obsessive to keep track of a baby\’s diaper-o-meter or a sleep-o-meter. But I would. Because I can. And most of all, it looks cool.

Also, when the baby grows up will think how great his or her parents are. Or how insane they are. Imagine telling kids on the playground that your parents kept track of every single thing you did…online! On a blog!

I am on campus now after my red eye flight from California, working with this huge blanket of drowsiness. The only thing keeping me awake is my music.

One thing I like to do to waste time is to browse through shared iTunes music lists. Like the chi 2005 paper about iTunes found, people tend to gauge people on their music taste. Is it almost like the MTV teenage-oriented show Room Invaders? Where a guy would explore three potential female interests\’ rooms (without their presence) and decide on someone based on the room\’s content? How well can you know someone from a room…or for me now, someone\’s music taste? And can you really judge someone like that not knowing the reason some songs are in the lists or not?

Who is Telperion? I like your list. So many songs remind me of my innocent days. Vertical Horizon for the misguided summer and loud obnoxious karaoke singing. Natalie Imburglia for bittersweet moment that only a teenager could have. Bonus points for having Thievery Corporation and The Postal Service. Minus points for having two Britney Spears songs. Is your guilty pleasure also Pure Moods? And various Top 40? Of all the Sneaker Pimps songs, you have the same one I have. 6 underground.

At one point before I was born, my mom came across the word Salmonella. She thought it was a beautiful name. Fortunately, she was inspired by the movie Romeo and Juliet and decided on a J-name.

My name Jennifer used to be very popular. According to the Baby Wizard (a magical thing that entertains me as much as the new google maps/craigslist – you type in a name and it shows the ups and downs over decades through a graph), my name used to be on top of its game in the seventies. By what? I don\’t even know. I mean nowadays there\’s the J-Lo, the Hewiit, the Connelly, the Garner. So how did my name fall from being number one to now a 38. Ouch.

And yet, I rarely run into another Jennifer now. I didn\’t have many classes where I was referred to as Jennifer N. The only time of confusion was during my freshman year in Berkeley when I had a roommate named Jennifer. This is where I started differentiating myself. I was Jenn was two ns. She was Jen with one n. Most Jennifers don\’t like two ns. But I need two to stay perfectly balanced.

It\’s 3 am here in San Diego. 6 am in Pittsburgh, where I was about 24 hours ago. My hair is wet from a shower. I don\’t like hairdryers. Somewhat hard to sleep as I was given the black leather couch to sleep.

This morning, I woke up at 8:15 am and in a half-asleep state, I finished packing in 15 minutes. Then I sat in my chair for 30 more minutes wondering if I really did pack everything. I dawdled, cleaning up my room hoping that I would come across something that I forgot to pack. I did though. I almost forgot my power cord for my powerbook. At 9 am, I decided that I was ready to go. I got to the first floor of the house, doing a habitual organizing of the kitchen table. Then suddenly I remembered I had to mail the gas bill. I rushed up, wrote a check, found a stamp and wrote my address on the envelope.

Then I left the house and speed-walked to the bus stop. By this point, I started stressing about whether I would make it to the airport in time for my 11:19 am flight. When I finally got on the airport flyer about 20 minutes later, I suddenly realized that I had no idea what airline I was flying. So I pulled out my laptop as the flyer crossed the bridges across the morning landscape of the three rivers. American Airlines. I got to the airport at 10:15 am and went up to the ticket counter. Flight cancelled. I had been dreading my itinerary of flying to Chicago then to Dallas then to San Diego with a long layover in between. Fortunately American Airlines had plan B. They changed my flight for a 1:09 flight to Dallas so I could catch my connection to San Diego. But now I had three hours to kill.

I walked to the trash while eating a banana and considered my options. The flyer was supposed to come every 20 minutes. So I could go somewhere…but it would be cutting close. Then I thought about how I would feel if I stayed in an airport for 2 hours, being bored and unproductive. I went downstairs to the shuttles where travelers made small talk. I went to Ikea and picked up screws for my bed. It was free.

At the Ikea bus stop, I saw a guy get out of a car and carried his bags to the stop. I didn\’t think that people could use Robinson Town Centre as airport parking, but what a great idea. Suddenly, an older man came into the stop. Another person and I were sitting in the only spaces. After a minute of pause, I stood up and asked the older man if he would like a seat. He gave me a heavy look and said thank you.

When I arrived in Dallas at 3 pm local time, I asked the American Airlines representative outside the gate which gate I should head for the 6:30 San Diego flight. She looked at her list and suggested that I take standby for the 4:30 pm San Diego flight. I got my name on the list and took a skylink train from terminal A to terminal C. I didn\’t get on the flight. So I went back to terminal C gate A37 for my flight. Then they changed the gate to A34. Then after another 30 minutes, they changed the gate to terminal C. On the way to terminal C, I met a man who I made small talk with while my San Diego flight became delayed and delayed. He worked with the aircraft and to my surprise, he knew about the IETMs that was part of my masters capstone project. He was standby and didn\’t get on.

They sat us at 6:45 pm, delayed due to a brake that didn\’t fall within accepted safety standards. I sat inside near a window, cursing the fact that I didn\’t charge my laptop at DFW. Time ticked and the airplane didn\’t take off for another 2 hours. My stomach grumbled. My eyes felt tired but I couldn\’t sleep. There was a family with kids next to my row. I wondered if people got annoyed when I was two…on my flight to Hong Kong. My mom said that I cried all the way there and clapped in glee when we finally landed. I made small talk with a girl next to me who worked for Hartford. She also borrowed my cellphone. Twice.

When I finally arrived, 2.5 hours past the expected arrival time…my sister also ran into problems at the sushi restaurant. They had such slow service that my sister left only 65 cents tip. She brought me dinner, avocado eel sushi. I accidentally gulped the wasabi in the dark thinking it was avocado. I had my first boba drink in awhile. They had real papaya.

At my sister\’s boyfriend\’s apartment, we watched Collateral. Two-thirds through, the fire alarm went off. this happens a lot, Tom said and covered the alarms in the apartment with towels. Then he opened the front door. The sprinkler in the nearby hallway had started and the entire hall was flooding. A neighbor advised Tom to cover all his electronics in case the sprinklers become activated in his apt. We frantically covered everything in plastic garbage bags. And put a towel near the front door. Then we watched the rest of the movie. The towel was soggy.

I miss my music. I need a mp3 player.

I love The Wedding Present. Yes, I do listen to a lot of morose, forlorn music.

Set of shutter sounds of various cameras

Why would you need those sounds again? Comparision shopping for the best sounding camera?

San Diego in two days! To see the lady do something extraordinary! Then I leave this humid weather! :D

I was 2 when my grandmother had a stroke and was paralyzed waist down. The entire family was devastated. Today, I could only remember her in a wheelchair. Whenever we went anywhere with my grandparents, we always got to take a handicapped space. I never noticed people staring. And in Berkeley with a large disabled students program, I barely noticed.

When I was 11, my favorite teacher had the motto, \”Don\’t be normal, be different!\”

And that is probably why I loved the movie, Twin Falls Idaho. It was one of the most saddest, dreamlike, heartbreaking films I have ever seen. Sure it follows a predictable plot and is full of pretentious symbolism. The summary – a love story between a woman and a pair of siamese twins, one of which is dying – seems mundane. (Although some probably would be curious if they share one set or have two sets of genitalia!) Yet, what the film does, unlike other they-are-different-from-us movies, doesn\’t dwell on the weirdness. We are taught to be compassionate to the brothers as they live in the city. And that makes me wonder why we treat those that are different so…much like outcasts. Sometimes even before we meet them.

There is one scene toward the end that breaks into a dream sequence–almost like a silent film–with the two brothers as two separate indviduals riding on bicycles round and round each other, waving goodbye.

There are no sad endings, only endings where the storyteller stopped telling the story.

beep boop beep!

Today, I learned that some original and unique things people I know do…in reality, they\’re copying what they watched on TV.

For example, the reason that someone wore uncomfortable shoes the other day was because on Grey\’s Academy, Dr. Meredith Grey also decided to wear uncomfortable shoes. And when Dr. Grey wore those uncomfortable shoes to work, she kissed her boss in an elevator, diagnosed correctly a baby\’s condition out of her jurisdiction, and carried a severed penis in a cooler all throughout her shift.

We want to be like the characters on TV and by copying lines, that\’s the only way we know how. It\’s also because we want to have an imaginary soundtrack in the background soaring in climax.