With only Elbow Room, we celebrated Justin\’s birthday yesterday night. It\’s amazing how birthdays take so much precedence here. I have never experienced so many \”surprises\” as I have at CMU. Last year, it was all about remembering your own. People were so disconnected in Berkeley. There was this self-absorbed tendency to get caught up in your own work, your own life, your own issues…that you often forget to open up yourself to others, forget to share.

I can say that I left that on purpose.

This weekend, I am planning to do the 6 lb burger (maybe?), live music at the Quiet Storm Cafe, and my own self-created ice cream tour.

My new music fascination is the Scissor Sisters. Such great gay disco of New York. I first saw them on SNL, but discovered them again as I was browsing the iTunes shared playlists. Favorite song so far: \”It can\’t come quickly enough\”

Today, I got to have the entire office to myself since the majority of my team was out. It was nice. A large room with my free dell speakers playing Keane and Snow Patrol. A slight bass. This is a rare time that I can do that when I try to always be considerate of my housemates and their music tastes. To pump up the music and not worry that others will not appreciate it.

Last summer, I had that luxury of playing music (loud and unconcerned) in my car. Oh last summer. It has been exactly one year since I met Chris. It has been one year since I invented the words closing time syndrome – a syndrome where people see others as much better because time is running out. Last summer, Chris saw me like that. It was one of the strangest, oddest periods of my life. I was given the job of lead technical coordinator. I was preparing to move across the country. And my parents were on my case as a result.

A moment like this:

He was sitting across from me, trying to install drives on the new security servers. I was there with my powerbook, not really wanting to do work, mostly idling with my usual Internet surfing. Suddenly he said, \”Guess what! Guess what!\”

\”What? What?\” I asked with a smile, an eyebrow raised.

\”I am going to miss you,\” he replied and gave me this nostalgic look

There is a lot more to the story, but he had the closing time syndrome. Wherever we go, we don\’t realize that there are some people that we won\’t ever see again. We never know if a \”see you later\” will translate to a permanent goodbye. And I wonder whether I\’ll have that as people in my program are leaving in early August. This time it\’s different. Almost everyone is heading to a place I will definitely visit in less than a year. There are no unforgotten strings or broken promises. There are only longlasting friendships and a sincere \”I\’ll see you soon!\”

Recently, my sister watched a video of a family trip to Washington D.C. more than 10 years ago. In one scene, she was shouting into the video camera showing off all the goodies she gathered. I stood complacently to the side, almost mute. She told me about a scene where she and I were playing on the rocks near the shore. She was close to the shore, having crawled over many rocks, throwing pebbles in the ocean. I instead had just crawled over one jagged rock, watching her throw pebbles. Just standing as if I was afraid to go any further.

The funny thing is that I still haven\’t changed that much. My personality is still very timid and reserved. A few months ago, when I went to Portland, I went with a few friends to visit a waterfall. There was a large area with logs and large rocks. Everyone else went crazy climbing over the rocks to see how far they could get in the river. I hesitantly walked across one log that was set across the river…and that was as far as I got. To me now, I consciously was afraid of falling and didn\’t want to risk. But I am so much like my timid, reserved self of 10 years old.

It\’s interesting how we don\’t change at all. Not internally. Sure some people can say I am no longer a mute (and that I tend to blurt a lot of things that are on my mind), but internally some personality traits don\’t change. I still have this awful shyness that overwhelms me when I am in a new situation with unfamiliar people. I still smile ridiculously for no reason. I still let my sister run the show in big situations.

But then what are the things that can change when I am this old?

Just a thought. Now that I don\’t post on Xanga, I waste time browsing through itunes\’ shared music libraries (one of the greatest inventions from Apple) on CMU\’s network. It\’s sad. I just can never stop procrastinating.

My \”L\” key on my powerbook has been acting up lately. My poor Eris (the name of my powerbook and brother to Chwong\’s Nemesis) has been slightly been abused lately.

Point is I never realized how important this little letter is. It\’s a single stroke when it\’s lowercase and it\’s two strokes when it\’s uppercase. It can often be mistaken for an I especially in sans serif font. Quite often, it disappears into accents when spoken. And in spanish it becomes a Y, like a vowel.

Yet, this insignificant letter has taken over my typing vocabulary for today. The words blog, letters, well-defined, well-designed, pan left, show clickable areas, more detail, faults, Charlie, Chocolate. And I find myself having to press the L key differently just to get that letter to show.

Eris, it\’s time for a makeover.

I have been thinking of getting an ipod for awhile and now have my sights finally set on the new 20 gig ipod (with photo features). $269 with student discount and free shipping of course.

But now I have that hefty question. What should I have for the free laser engraving?

Some ideas (and some inspired elsewhere):

Things like this? Using the engraving utility!

A recap of a typical mHCI graduate student\’s weekend! And I thought I was soooo busy!

When I was 11, I obsessively overtook chat rooms asking stupid questions. I still have transcripts of those times somewhere in my room in California. But when I looked them more than 7 years later, I was apalled at how immature I was. But that\’s always what happens when you look back.

Back then though, many people I met online thought I was older. I remember thirty-somethings finding my writing fascinating. I said so many strange things. I lacked social skills when I was that age and thus saw the world in a totally unique perspective. I made any single sentence into a work of fiction. One person described it as lyrical and melodious.

Then I got old and became what they call \”normal\”. The point why I bring it up is that…through this Xanga experience, I have come across some 11 year olds, 12 years old, 13 year olds…and it\’s amazing to see them being so precocious. They are ten years younger and it almost seems like they\’re seeing the world through my 11 year old eyes. I admit that I am slightly envious that they could claim innocence and people can believe it. That they have untainted, naive minds. They aren\’t afraid because how could they be afraid of something they don\’t know. I miss all of that.

A few weeks ago, I started the ball rolling on this trip to Cedar Point. A three hour car ride to the best amusement park ever! Except that recruiting people was difficult. As time ticked down to my planned date, people started getting busy. Some people got sick. Some people went out of town. Unfortunately, I am one of those people that easily gets influenced by people\’s decisions. I felt so disappointed as the day went on. Watching crazy drivers drive vintage cars in a nearby race track (pictures to come) cheered up slightly, but I was sad that I couldn\’t spend a lot of time with the people who were leaving in August. So I cancelled the trip and rescheduled it.

At least I won\’t have to wake up early tomorrow.

In other thoughts though, I remembered one awkward moment related to amusement parks. It was my first boyfriend and me. He was visiting me during spring break, sacrificing his last spring break of high school to see me in Northern California. I surprised him the day he arrived with two tickets to an amusement park. He looked downfallen and disappointed. Not his thing. Yet I already spend a lot of money on it. (Meaning…I was poor at that time…and $30 is something I couldn\’t give away). We went on a rollercoaster for my sake and basically, he refused to let go of the safety harness. He wasn\’t that easy-going about it either. Yeah, a little awkward. No wonder, it didn\’t really work out. :)

Next memory. When I visited Minnesota, my friends there made a big deal about how we should go to Cedar Point. By that time, I had gotten older (and possibly mature). I demanded to see what made their city of Duluth so great rather than driving down to a park. Two years later, now in Pittsburgh. It\’s not because I want to be entertained, it\’s because I want to ride the best of the best. Where is my 6 lb burger by the way?