And why do you miss those who cause you the most anguish? Is this a suppressed paradoxical feeling? We always want what we should or cannot have.

I am now using my new lcd monitor off my powerbook. A dual monitor setup. It took me more than 2 years to convince myself to buy a lcd. One major reason was that I didn\’t want to lug my crt to Pittsburgh. Then it took another 2 months to decide what kind of lcd. I had ordered a 19\” Viewsonic monitor 3 weeks ago, but because it was such an amazing deal, it was on backorder. I cancelled it 2 weeks later and spent a whole week annoyed that I still could not use my desktop (this is the desktop that I took on the plane as carry-on and where a fellow passenger commented \”you\’ve got a big laptop there\”). And so I finally decided on a Dell e173 (not ultrasharp).

On Thursday, I got my box and walked around Wean Hall hugging the box.

The day is always different when you had only a few hours of sleep plus a bad dream.

Jimmy Eat World is coming to Pittsburgh. PITTSBURGH. November 11 pm at 7:30 pm at the Rock Hall. I saw them 2 years ago in San Francisco at the warfield. I think I\’ll miss class to go see them. Again.

One characteristic that I really don\’t like about myself is my constant social anxiety. Not surprisingly, the Internet is one of the very few places that I almost have none. In some situations, it\’s significant enough that I don\’t do the best that I can at one task.

It\’s just not shyness. I do want to voice my opinion. I want to say something. But this almost irrational fear overcomes me when I have to say something. Not just public speaking, mind you. In high school, the worst grades I got was…for class participation. There was an English class where the teacher graded heavily on participation in class discussion. Almost 15% of the grade. Of course, I was silent the entire semester, probably only spoke aloud 2 or 3 times when he forced me to answer a question. My participation grade was…very low. But I wrote the best essays in class and for some reason, that made up for everything. I got an A in that class.

Most people don\’t understand my \”social anxiety\”. I can see them get frustrated – \”JUST SAY SOMETHING.\” But that just isn\’t good enough.

Reminder to self – what is on my to-be-purchased list:

Why is my powerbook\’s fan on when I am not doing anything that…heavy-duty?

Just only word, powerpoint, quicksilver, adium, mulberry, mozilla, terminal?

Moving up through school seems to get progressively harder and stressful. High school was a complete breeze. Undergrad at Berkeley was…well…not that horrible; I had too much free time and I knew it. Now in grad school, I am working almost every waking hour on assignments and projects even though I am doing the program \”part-time\”.

The last week, I have been having 3-5 hour meetings every day. Today, I have been in this nifty 8th floor conference room (it has a stove, a coffee maker, a view of the city of pittsburgh, outlets in the middle of the table, a good VGA projector, one whiteboard, one blackboard, one bulletin board, and drawers of soy sauce) There\’s also two airport expresses nearby, but they\’re both password protected. :( Out of the five group members, four of us have powerbooks. :) It\’s 7:30 pm now…we\’re almost done…we\’re almost done…I hope. I need time to prepare for my presentation tomorrow.

It\’s so superficial, but one thing I am afraid of…is that I\’ll gain too much weight here in Pittsburgh. One significant difference here and California is that there are more people that are…pleasantly plump. On the bus, I see people taking up more than one seat. Then when walking to the local supermarket, I see someone in a wheelchair because they can\’t walk. I feel guilty as I walk by, knowing that I gawk and knowing that…maybe it\’s not their fault that they\’re that way. And yet, I can\’t help feeling disgusted as they enter Coldstone Creamery to order a \”I love it\” size.

When I was younger, my mom did make a point of how I was \”bigger\” than my younger sister. It just sort of showed. But being asian, I was always compared to my peers as skinny…and thinner. Most of the time, I never really watch what I eat. Food to me…is meant to be a joy. And other times, I see it as a curse because my hunger pangs interfere with my work productivity. In Berkeley, I often got away with eating 5-10 bites of food, mostly because I didn\’t have time to eat. That was also because my mom made me food and I didn\’t attach as much value. Here in Pittsburgh, because I make my own food and purchase my own meals, I feel like I should finish everything I make because…it would be such a waste otherwise. And so now, I find myself eating not because I am hungry, but because the food is there. A few days ago, I bought a large bunch of bananas and…finished it in two days.

Sigh.

And another thing is that…while in Berkeley, the kitchen was the next room, here the kitchen is two floors below. It\’s too far. And…selfish as it is, I am posessive of my food. The idea of leaving my favorite food downstairs outside of my cupboard (i.e. bread, cornbread, bakery cookies, cereal) may invite people to eat them. So to appease my paranonia, I keep some food in my room. I have three boxes of beverages – water, lemonade, and snapple iced tea. Then a huge bag of ramen. Then my cornbread and cookies in another corner. Then one box of cereal and my raisin loaf bread. And bananas.

For everything that is strange and weird to me here, everything in California is strange to people here in Pittsburgh. Example: I have always complained about the back doors on the Pittsburgh buses. That is, I have to yell \”back door\” to get the bus driver to open the back door. Otherwise, I have to run toward the front so that I could get off. Yesterday, I overheard the bus driver talking to a passenger…about how he thought the back doors in other cities were so weird. The fact that the bus driver didn\’t open and close the back door. But if people get on from the back? asked the bus driver Well duh, the back door only opens in one way. But what if someone rides from one side of the city to the other, aren\’t they supposed to be pay extra? And for this, I thought this was really weird that going from one zone to another costed extra…

Another odd thing I find strange about Pittsburgh is that cars don\’t yield to pedestrians. If I am crossing the street, I expect cars to just sort of…slow down. But here, I almost got run over. The other day, I overheard how someone was so surprised that in San Francisco, a car came screeching down the hill and halted right in front of him so that he would cross.

EDIT: CARS DON\’T YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS AS OFTEN IN THE EAST COAST.

I wobbled today.