Senioritis

A picture to remind me that there’s more to Austin than campus

It’s no secret that I desperately want to get out of school. I’m tired of the culture more than anything - parties, immaturity, people staying up until five in the morning so that when you call at eleven to see what they’re doing for the day, you feel guilty because you woke them up. I’m tired of people still acting like they need their mommies to be able to function at all. I’m tired of people spending their student loans on going out to eat every day because they’re too lazy to boil some water for noodles. I can’t wait to be out of this little tiny apartment and into an actual house where I’ll have the room to move my computer and little television set out of my bedroom. The cats are tired of being here too, already. They’re bored and they hate being limited to my bedroom, a living room, and the bathroom.

I think it’s mostly just walking around and hearing people act like we did back in high school. We all just have cabin fever. This morning Augustus has been whining at the top of his lungs and I have no idea why. Letting him look out the kitchen window helped for awhile but every time someone walks by he gets terrified and jumps down, and then can’t get back up. Sata has been just laying listlessly under my bed, and I know he’s bored and wants to go outside but I can’t let him because of all the weirdos who hang around here and the non-neutered cats who are aggressive and spray all over the place.

And me? I will be very glad when I’m completely done with pop quizzes and dirty carpets and leaky faucets in the bathroom and lack of windows. I always thought I’d love to live in apartments, moving from place to place, never tied down. Then I actually began living in one and it’s killing me (not really - I’m dramatic).

I guess I’m just tired of living the student life. I don’t want to settle down, but I’d like to get out of this area, out of school, and get on with my life. University students, especially the ones here, are so pushy, rude, immature, and self-centered. I get off a city bus and everyone who gets off with me is thanking the bus driver, saying “have a nice day” and all that. I get of a university shuttle and it’s silence. People will yell at a bus driver and then never once say “thank you.” It’s ridiculous. I’m so ready to be done with it. They push in front of you when you’re walking and never excuse themselves, or they bump into you and never say they’re sorry. They’ll talk loudly on their cell phones in quiet areas and expect you to just deal with it.

It doesn’t help that there’s 30,000 of us here. This is a huge university, and you can easily be anonymous or get involved, whichever you want. But either way, you can’t avoid the crowds of girls in shorts and t-shirts and flip-flops, yapping on their cell phone and pushing through, or the frat boys with the stupid polo shirts who walk really closely behind you when there’s no one else around. And it doesn’t help that the university has taken on three major construction projects, cutting off most access routes to the buildings, which increases the crowds along one of the roads so much that you can’t even hear yourself think.

tl;dr? I’m tired. I’m ready to be out of here. Senioritis for the lose.

February 24, 2009 @ 11:32 am . Comments (8)

General — Tags: annoyance, cats, Future, living, school

4008 House

As you may know, J and I are considering flats for next year. Our requirements are pretty high - it needs to allow cats (as we have two now - cat post soon!). I also want a washer/dryer, simply because I clean up spills and things with rags and towels, not paper products, and I need an easy way to wash these. Additionally, I want to be able to line dry them, and this is hard to do when you have to carry heavy, wet laundry from the public laundry. And my last requirement was that it have lots of big windows. My current flat is windowless. I’m serious. There’s a total of four windows - one in each room, and honestly, three of them are useless. My roommate keeps his door shut because of the cats, so that’s one window. The kitchen window is tiny. And the living room window faces a wall. There’s no light in here! We’re living in perpetual darkness with oppressive artificial lights. Ugh.

Anyway, J ended up finding a house that meets all our requirements. The rent is a bit steeper than what I’d hope, but I have to admit it does have a lot of windows. J loves it - it has a yard and it’s in a decent area of town, so our new cat Sata can actually go outside. I’m still considering. This is a huge commitment, and a house is really intimidating.

So! Here are the pros:

1. It’s private. Apartments around here are ALWAYS full of university students, so they tend to be noisy, with an annoying university atmosphere. When I’m done with school, although I’m still going to be here working in Austin, I’d like to get AWAY from that kind of culture, at least when I’m at home. The house is private and surrounded by Real Families, which means I’d be away from the fraternity/partying/university culture.
2. It’s big. It’s not big for a house, certainly, but it’s much bigger than most of the apartments we can get for the same amount of money. It has two bedrooms and a spare room in the back, along with living, kitchen, and dining. This means we get to have a bedroom, study, and spare room for guests and whatever else.
3. It has TONS of windows. Seriously. Every picture of this place was sunny and bright, even the bathroom. Not a single room was window-less.
4. It has a yard, and a shed in the back. J insists he’ll take care of the yard, and it’ll be nice to have somewhere to relax in the morning. It has a slab of concrete in the back acting as a back porch, and we could put a little table out there to have our morning coffee. It’s not the prettiest, but it IS a yard, and the shed can act as extra storage for bikes and lawn mowers and whatever.
5. The kitchen and dining are separate rooms. I know this is really silly, but I HATE the trend these days of having the kitchen and the eating area be one room, or even opening up the kitchen and dining to the living room. My current apartment places the kitchen and dining in the living room, separating them by a bar over the counters. It’s really common and I hate it. I much prefer to have a separate kitchen, and a separate dining room.
6. Hardwood floors. Augustus, our long-haired cat, LOVES tile and hardwood because he gets so hot in the summer. I love hardwood because it doesn’t collect dirt and cat fur and it’s just beautiful, and trust me, when it’s 110F outside, you do NOT want carpet.
7. There’s an actual hallway. But at the same time, all the rooms are connected to each other. The floorplan is just really nice and accessible, and no room would go unused.

Here are the cons:

1. The rooms are painted god-awful colors. I’m not even lying. All the rooms are painted sage green except for the kitchen and bathroom - those are canary yellow. CANARY YELLOW. Just thinking about it makes me want to hurl. J is going to ask if we can re-paint the walls a more neutral color, like white or pale gray, but I don’t have high hopes. I think I could live with the sage green (green is by far my least favorite color, though). But canary yellow? Come on! It’s not the 80s anymore.
2. No curtain rods on the windows. Not a big deal, as the windows have nice molding around them, and the blinds aren’t mini-blinds, but bigger, lovely white ones. So even without curtains it wouldn’t be a big deal, but I’d still like the option.
3. It’s really big. I dunno. We just don’t need THAT much space. It is nice, but J has a tendency of buying stuff to fill up space, and I’m a HUGE minimalist. I want to have the computers and such separated from the bedroom, so I wanted a two-bedroom flat to have a study separate, but then we have one more extra room. Not sure what we’d do with it … I was thinking a guest room but we honestly would hardly ever have guests, and I don’t want one of the rooms to go unused.
4. It’s on the pricey side. Okay, keep in mind this is AUSTIN, where they have half a million dollar one-bedroom CONDOS downtown. Compared to that, it’s dirt-cheap. On the other hand, if we were to live thirty-minutes north, we could find a house to rent for 2/3 of what we’d be paying. I’d rather pay the extra money to live in Austin, but it still is pricey. It’s a big commitment, money-wise. I don’t want to jump into this.
5. The yard would take a lot of work. It’s really nice if we could fix it up - there’s a big tree in the back and a few trees in the front, but right now it’s sort of patches of dirt and a bit of grass. We would have to replant grass back there, and then we have to cut it and water it every few days in the summer. I’m really not a yard-work person. I don’t think I’d mind mowing, but trust me when I say the yard needs work.
6. No garbage disposal. Not a huge deal, especially because we could have a compost bin now that we have a yard and stuff where we can actually USE compost.
7. THIS IS SCARY! I’m only twenty-one! I know a lot of people around here rent houses, but it’s different when you’re moving in with your boyfriend and you have two cats and you’re not in school anymore. It feels so grown-up and scary!

It’s tough to say. I haven’t actually seen the place yet. That’s going to happen today. I’ve just seen pictures. I was going to post them here, but the current residents are still there, and so the house still has their stuff in it, and I’m not comfortable posting pictures of other people’s stuff. The pictures make it look nice, and J insists it’s even more wonderful in person, but there’s so much to think about right now. And the sucky thing is we have to make a decision fairly soon, because it can and WILL get snapped up soon.

I dunno. What do you guys think? I’m really needing some advice and input right now. It’s hard to find a place that satisfies all my requirements - lots of windows, washer/dryer, allows cats. This is a really lucky find. But there’s really so much to think about. I just don’t know. Can you think of any other important questions I should ask the realtor before we make a decision? What would you do?

January 29, 2009 @ 9:35 am . Comments (4)

Future — Tags: apartment, Future, living

Have a Health Day

When you read this, I strongly encourage you to spend the next 24 hours having a Health Day. What is a Health Day? It’s a day where you focus on health - your health, physical and mental, the health of others, and the health of the environment. Sometimes when I’m in a funk I take a Health Day, where I focus really hard on just living really well. It really helps because even though it’s just for one day, it helps you to be more energetic and happy the next day. I’ve decided to share this after I’ve been noticing a lot of people in a winter depression.

So! Here’s what you do. You go through the categories and you choose at least one thing from each category to do in the next 24 hours. The more you do, the better. Then when 24 hours is over, you can blog about your experience or just post in the comments. If nobody does this, I’ll just get really sad and never bring it up again.

Your Health - Physical

• Go for a long walk
• Have twice as many fruits and vegetables than anything else
• Don’t eat any sugar (except natural sugar in fruits)
• Read up on diet myths if you’re trying to lose weight or get healthy, and then actually apply them to your eating habits.
• Spend an hour in the morning doing yoga or weight lifting or simple exercises like pushups and situps.
• Go to sleep before midnight. If you already do this, then relax with something non-computer related for an hour before bed, like reading a book.
• Add your own!

Your Health - Mental

• Start reading a new book.
• Take ten minutes in the middle of the day to close your eyes and simply not think about anything. If you realize you’re thinking about something, simply acknowledge it and stop.
• Forgive someone and forget about it.
• Draw a picture.
• Read up on interesting facts about Earth and science.
• Take the time to understand a concept or theory you never understood before.
• Find a diplomatic way to deal with an annoyance in your life.
• Add your own!

Others’ Health

• Compliment a stranger sincerely.
• Explain to a friend how much he or she means to you, no matter how awkward or fumbling it is.
• Pay for the person’s food in front of you in line. If you’re in a drive-through, pay for the person behind you.
• Call up a really good friend that you haven’t talked to in awhile.
• Give someone a hug.
• Buy someone flowers, such as your mother.
• Add your own!

Health of the World

• Recycle!
• Don’t buy anything for one day
• Turn down the heat by a few degrees (or the air conditioning)
• Hang up your clothes to dry instead of using a dryer
• Try to buy local if you go out for groceries
• If you can, walk or bike to work or school instead of driving or even taking the bus.
• Add your own!

My hope is that if we all take a few days to invoke some health into the world and into their lives, it will help everyone to just destress. After all, the best way to feel better is to do something nice for yourself or others. What do you think?

January 12, 2009 @ 10:09 pm . Comments (4)

Health — Tags: Health, living

Year in review

Mei Zhu style, month by month.

January:
- Went to Hawaii!
- J and I start going on dates
- School starts up again. D: Always a bad thing.
- My favorite arcade closes down, which was just downright awful.

February:
- For the first time, I drop a class
- J makes me dinner for Valentine’s Day
- Missing the weather of Hawaii

March:
- I start seriously hating my probability class
- Register for classes for summer and fall
- I find an apartment to live in next semester

April:
- J and I start officially “going out” on Facebook (hahaha … ha …)
- It’s a very happy time for me
- Playing way too much The Sims 2

May:
- Get all As and a B
- My brother’s undergraduate graduation with highest honors
- Only a week or so vacation before summer school starts.
- I get my review at work, which is good but I feel unrecognized for my hard work, so I decide to quit
- J and I get our kitten Augustus from the Humane Society

June:
- Summer school starts - studio art and networking
- Still working at the same place (tech support) - haven’t found a new job yet
- Move in to live with J (and Augustus) for the summer
- Working and schooling from 8-5 is tough. D:

July:
- Summer school ends - I’m sad for it to be over because my classes were fun, especially art
- Augustus is a huge brat but we love him anyway.
- Happy birthday to me! I turn 21!

August:
- I finally know what I want to do with my life - become a graphic designer/web programmer
- I move in to my first apartment!
- Playing way too much Mass Effect
- Find a new job finally as a Web Applications Specialist in the College of Education at the university

September:
- School starts up again, and grad school starts for my brother
- The semester starts off with a bang, and as I’m taking 5 classes plus a lab, it’s insane
- My operating system projects nearly kill me
- I attend the career fair, and it is an enormous letdown for the most part

October:
- Microsoft Interview is the crappiest interview ever
- Exxon Interview goes okay
- Optaros Interview goes well
- Seriously stressing about school
- I went as a fairy princess for Halloween

November:
- J turns 22!
- Augustus turns 1!
- My brother and his girlfriend move out into their own apartment
- Nanowrimo starts and ends! I hit about 52,000 words.
- Extremely stressful month
- Second interview with Optaros

December:
- My friends and I start a game of Mage: The Awakening
- My brother turns 23!
- Finals~
- I receive an offer from Optaros
- The semester ends, and I miraculously make four As and a B
- My grandparents come to visit
- Christmas happens
- Playing way too much Fallout 3

Resolutions for the new year:
- Handle change better
- Keep my head up and looking forward
- Have more fun - it’s my last semester at university!

December 31, 2008 @ 12:46 pm . Comments (4)

General — Tags: change, living, nostalgia

For us, for all the world

Have you ever had it when you’ve been thinking a lot about one particular thing, or a bunch of little things that all relate with one overarching theme, but you’re having a hard time putting it into words? I’m sort of having that problem, but it’s more like I know what I want to say, but I don’t have time to say it.

But kind of what I was thinking about was Mill’s idea of the worst kind of tyranny that a majority can impose upon a minority: the kind that gets deep into your soul. Like people in older times or different places that were or are locked up for differing beliefs - at least they still can hold firm because the government cannot lock up their mind. But when you go to a party or post a blog post online and say you like something different from the norm … it’s weird how people just make you feel so bad. And they do it from all sides, in all places, with all opinions. That’s the sort of feeling that gets deep within you, makes you either change your mind or shut up about your different opinions.

My biggest thing right now I think is the fact that I am not enchanted in the least by Obama, and that I didn’t really like McCain either. And the fact that I chose not to vote (before you jump down my throat on THIS, yes, I am registered, yes, I was considering it, yes, I vote in local elections, and my ultimate choice was not to vote in this one). I just had so many people tell me I was crazy or give me the silent treatment or do this weird thing where you could tell they were really annoyed at me but they didn’t want to show it. THAT’S what I’m talking about. I could feel it getting to me - it made me upset, it made me feel like I was weird for being different, for thinking different. People made me feel terrible for not really liking Obama all that much, and people made me feel awful for not voting.

It gets to you. It really does. Even if you brush it off in your mind, when someone says, “What is WRONG with you?” or implies it, you can’t forget it, not really. Everyone has had this sort of thing happen to them - and eventually they either change their mind or stop talking about what they feel. I stop talking. If someone has something to say, I’ll listen to them and respect them and even encourage them to talk, but I don’t say much back. In fact, I hardly ever talk about my opinions - I do it more in the online community because I’m bolder online, but in real life it’s just easier to say nothing.

And, if it’s the only way I can truly hold onto what I believe, then I must stay quiet. I don’t want people getting to me like that.

My thoughts and opinions are challenged nearly every day because I don’t have very mainstream ideas, at least not today. I’m a minority in a lot of my opinions, but I have very Mill-ian ideas about how the world should work. It’s very comforting, though, to know that I am not the only one, that some of these great thinkers warned against or encouraged the very same conclusions I’ve arrived to now.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, you’ve all had this happen to you, where someone thinks you’re stupid for feeling a certain way. And you KNOW it gets to you. And the worst part is, we all do it. Like, the Obama thing. Liking Obama is clearly a majority thing - he received the most popular votes. And I had some of my closest friends treat me like I was insane. The months leading up the election were very painful for me - very painful. It’s hard to admit that. Hard to admit that people get to you like that. Every single time someone would mention Obama I would tense up. Worse, every single time someone would bring up the election, I would feel that all over again, deep down inside. I had to start avoiding news. I didn’t want to be treated like an outsider. I still don’t.

So I come to you, bearing my soul out to the world. I have minority beliefs - we all do in at least one respect. Some of us here are the weird ones, the ones who thought differently in school and were teased for it. Now that we’ve grown up it hasn’t gotten much better even though we think it has. Adults have more subtle ways of making people feel bad for being weird or having weird opinions.

I implore you, all of you. This is even a reminder to myself. The next time someone says something that’s stupid or weird or different, don’t tease them. Don’t make fun of them. Don’t roll your eyes. You can disagree to them, say, “I see what you’re saying. I don’t know if I feel the same way though, but you have a point.” But don’t make them feel bad for the disagreement.

Embrace the differences for the sake of the weirdness that is in all of us. By stifling us you stifle yourself.

November 15, 2008 @ 11:02 am . Comments (6)

Culture — Tags: insecurities, lessons, living, the world

Relaxing Friday

It’s been a really long semester so far, and I’ve been starting to get really drained because I don’t have time for warmth, relaxation, and happiness. It took yesterday, getting to the point where I just broke down, for me to finally force myself to take it easy for awhile.

So I’m going to spend this weekend resting, drinking tea, and relaxing my mind. I’ll also be getting my creativity back, taking my time on projects and assignments, and taking lots of breaks for coffee and sweets. I’m also staying away from my phone, and also my computer - maybe possibly I’ll check my email but mostly I’m going to be gone.

Have a great weekend everyone!

October 24, 2008 @ 6:25 pm . Comments (4)

General — Tags: living, real life, relaxing, well-being

Who you are

I have a lot of books. Above is the second bookcase I own - notice how the rows of books are nice and neat? Notice how there’s room for my roommate’s DVDs and even some boxes at the top that has my art supplies in them? Yeah, the only reason for that is because I haven’t moved most of the books from my other bookcase to this one. My other bookcase has books horizontally on the shelves so I can stack them up. Then there are stacks of books in FRONT of each stack of books. So, essentially, they’re double stacked and stacked horizontally instead of nice and vertical.

Then I have two boxes of books in my closet.

I have a LOT of books. But I don’t have a LOT of stuff. I find what’s important to me and I keep them because I USE them. But just because I have a lot of books doesn’t mean I have a lot of things I don’t need. I don’t have a fancy TV, I don’t have tons of clothes and makeup, I don’t hoard things from my childhood. Every year I go through my stuff and give a fair amount of it to Goodwill.

So apparently we’re going through some economic/financial crisis right now. Apparently people are freaking out because they think there’s going to be another great depression and so they’re hoarding stuff. To me, this doesn’t sound any different from what people normally do. You DON’T need all that stuff. You can live without your junk, even through a financial crisis.

I know people who keep everything - I know people whose cars look like a trashcan and you can only fit in the front seat because the back seat is completely covered in stuff. People get unreasonably defensive about it, too. They talk about how they NEED that chipped vase because it was their great-grandparents’ and how if they get rid of the ten thousand hangers they have in their closet, half of which aren’t even being used, they might need them later and won’t have them and will panic.

What is up with this fear? You have to choose what’s important to you, and even then you can’t be unreasonable about it. I love books but even I give away books every once in awhile because I will never read them again. And if I do decide to read it later on down the line, well, that’s why libraries exist.

And that’s the whole thing - people are so terrified of not having exactly what they need when they need it, and I ask you, why? Why are you afraid? Also, why do you NEED this stuff? Does it make you feel better as a person to have it? Do you keep it because some day you might look at it again and relive those memories? Take a picture of it and throw it out.

Unclutterer often talks about these ideas but I’ve noticed it often pushes this to an extreme. What I’m saying is you don’t need to get rid of everything - I have two bookcases, for goodness’ sake. But that’s because books are important to me and I read a lot. I have a lot of art supplies as well - they fit nicely in four boxes and I have a fold-up easel too. But I don’t have a lot of junk that I keep around just for memories. I don’t have a lot of furniture, I don’t have a big bed, and I don’t have electronic junk. I don’t have an iPod, I don’t have a stereo, I don’t have ten million DVDs that need their own separate container to store them all. I don’t have a file cabinet - just a magazine holder that holds recent files. Everything older than six months to a year is shredded and thrown out (sometimes scanned first).

The point is I don’t spend the money on this stuff and I don’t fill up my cozy apartment with it either. The first thing most people say when they walk into my apartment is, “Wow, it looks really nice in here! But it’s so small!”

I think Americans in general are used to humongous living spaces. It’s this vicious circle - we buy too much stuff and then we buy a bigger place to fit all our stuff and then we realize we have more space for more stuff so we buy more stuff, and then we think we need a bigger place, and so on. I read somewhere (can’t find the original source) that Americans have much more space than Europeans, and they feel uncomfortable living in small spaces. I don’t think my place is small because I don’t have so much stuff that it feels cramped. There isn’t a lot of square footage but I don’t need a lot of square footage. When did we start valuing more space than we need? When did we start feeling more secure financially when we have a lot of things?

Which brings me back to my original point. You will be able to better survive a financial crisis if you learn to stop relying on material goods, sell the things you don’t need, get out of debt, and stop buying things you can’t afford. Wealth does NOT equal How Much Stuff You Have. Start with one thing at a time - throw something out and don’t look back.

You don’t have to live in a house with nothing. You’re allowed to have hobbies! You’re allowed to keep things you use. But sever that attachment with your material goods. These things do not make you who you are.

October 8, 2008 @ 11:39 am . Comments (5)

Culture — Tags: lessons, living, trends