es effffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

what was i thinking, going up to sf?? now, not only am i lagging on work, but i am also seized with an violent desire to move up there! 

why do i hate my school so much?????????

don't take offense, el ay. it's me, not you. (but really it's you)

"biodiversity down the barrel of a gun"

from the economist: 

conflict conservation

"Some such “parks” are accidents of settlement, or its absence. Nature is preserved in those rare places that people just have not got round to overrunning—for example the Foja Mountains in western New Guinea, an area of rainforest that teems with an astonishingly rich variety of plants and animals. Others are accidents of conflict: places from which people have fled and where the fauna and flora have thrived as a result.

"The demilitarised zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea is a good example. Over the past six decades this narrow and dangerous strip of land running 248km (155 miles) across the Korean peninsula has become a de facto nature reserve. As agriculture and industrialisation have moved ahead elsewhere, the thousand-square-kilometre DMZ, uninhabited and heavily mined, has been a refuge for two endangered birds: the white-naped and the red-crowned crane. It also contains Asiatic black bears, egrets and, according to some, an extremely rare subspecies of the Siberian tiger. The biggest threat to all this biodiversity is probably peace. There are already calls for the DMZ to be turned into a park in the event of reunification."

this makes me so sad. i can't even tell if this is really a sustained argument, the premise just makes me really really sad.

chocolate-saturated disaster.

i discovered a few years ago that i no longer enjoyed candy. instead, my desire for sweets had crystalized into a single form of culinary delight: CHOCOLATE.

sometimes the cravings are so bad i will eat the crappy semi-sweet chocolate bits left over from my last baking expedition. a giant bar of chocolate will vanish into the abyss of my tummy within hours. once, in high school, dee offered me half her snickers bar when i complained of hunger. i returned half of it to her with the chocolate and whipped cream nibbled off, and all but the caramel and peanuts left.

thank God those dark days are over. for the next two weeks, at least.

my favorite favorite FAVORITE chocolate these days is CHOCOLOVE RASPBERRY IN DARK CHOCOLATE 55% COCOA CONTENT KTHXBYE.

it used to be lion bars. i think i still love lion bars, in the way you get over your first love but that aftertaste still lingers in your mouth and mind because it was your first and it was so sweet and sexy and delicious. but CHOCOLOVE RASPBERRY IN DARK CHOCOLATE 55% COCOA CONTENT is like so undeniably hot, it's all smooth and sensuous in your mouth and after it melts you have the sharp sassy zing of raspberries sizzling on the tip of your tongue. it's your sophomore experience, where you're not so innocent and young anymore you want something bold and daring, something that will satiate your initial craving and then leave you wanting MORE.

this is not healthy.

overANALyze much?

predictably so, i read a lot of cultural discourse blogs because i mean, it's not like i should be reading cases and E&Es ALL THE TIME.

i recently came across a post that posed a very serious question:

"jenn f. found herself faced with a 'lucky taco' at the end of her meal at a mexican restaurant. it contained the following text: 'paco says, ‘a bird in hand can be very messy.’”

"is this is an appropriation of another culture? a cruel parody of an authentic tradition? an offensive stereotype to begin with that is no less offensive when re-racialized? or something else?"

this is what it looked like:

yeah, okay, seriously people, let's not get too carried away here. this...this is hilarious!! i mean, come on, a lucky taco?? "a bird in the hand can get very messy"??? that's straight up wise words right there! HAHAHHAHAHA!

the entry goes on to ask, "So this company took the chinese fortune cookie and re-racialized it…. three times over. Is this is an appropriation of chinese culture?"

no! i mean, wtf. are you seriously going to apply the term "re-racialized" to something that doesn't even have honest culinary roots and suggest that it carries any legitimate cultural connotations? if i'm offended by any part of this, it is the idea that chinese cuisine has a monopoly over the concept of a fortune cookie. the fortune cookie is something quintessentially asian american in origin, but it does NOT have a singular background. its history is diverse and deeply tied to the history of asian america. to denote the concept as patently chinese is tantamount to saying CREESPEE COOKIIIEEE WIS FORTUNE INSIDE IS FROM CHINA!!!!! WHERE PEEPOH HAVE SLANTY EYES AND EAT DOG!!

(that's cacophony going on in my head right now - i realize this is not what they are actually saying)

UGH. this is the kind of self-marginalizing aggrandizement that turns people off from being socially minded. because all this extrapolation is totally, utterly bullshit.

JEEERRRRRSSSEEYYYYY SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRREEEEEE!!!!!!!

my best friends from college are partly made up of a group of girls i lived with freshman year at cardinal gardens. they were a contingent of smart, sassy, cute little asian girls with dirty mouths and an even dirtier sense of humor. all of us are asian, with the exception of j, who is in fact, jewish. HA HA HA.

this is only funny if you've ever met her.



okay, now you have.

HAHAHA. j is in fact a korean adoptee, raised in.... .... wait for it....

JERSEY SHORE.

despite her reppin this fact since the days of cardinal and sin, none of us really understood, or cared, until THIS show came out: JERSEY SHORE - aka, the best thing to ever happen to reality TV. this show prompted more than one of us to exclaim upon the completion of yet another hilarious episode, "wow. now, i understand j. i really understand her now."



the series just came to an end, and WOW it's amazing just how the seven biggest assholes and bitches you've ever seen in your life can be so goddamn endearing. i remember when the show was about to come out, yaddam sent me the trailer, and i was liiike, "whaadaaafaaaaaaaaaaackkkkkkkk, is this shit curreeeiillll???" yeah in fact it was. when the first episode aired karina and i happened to be at the gym (we don't have tv at home) and on the treadmills. we almost fell off. over the course of a summer, you watch how the lovely kids grow to become -sniff- a tanned, guido family. my favorite is mike "the situation" who seems to try to come off as a dick but in fact is a total softie. snooki is a close second, but damn that girl is a fucking trainwreck! the shenanigans are hilarious, but i think the crux of the show is in the totally unnecessary drama that the guidos hash up. now that it's over, people are already discussing - what's the future of the show? mtv can either bring the old cast back, but it will no longer be as fresh and funny. or they could get another group of guidos, but they're just gonna try to emulate the old cast. no way they can replicate the same sleeper success.

or they could create..........

KTOWN HOTTIES!!!!!!

someone needs to pitch the idea to mtv to get a house and stuff it full of koreans. homggg HOW AMASIAN WOULD THAT BE?????? think about ALL THE DRAMA!!! it'd be 10,000x more crazy than jersey shore, cos koreans will cut a bitch. think about all the lv toting yujahs screaming "HOOOOOMMMMAIIIGAAAWWWWWD HAI AM LIKE SOOOOOOOOOO DRUUNNNK RIGHT NOW WHERE IS MY FUCKING CELLLLLLLLLLLPHONE????????" and the ex-lambda fratboys getting into knife fights outside le cercle every friday night????? omg....omg just thinking about it makes me so excited!!!!!!!!!!! instead of mike "the situation" there'd be mike kim "the palindrome" who also has a sixpack and drives a mercedes amg. instead of ronnie there'd be stephen lee "the anti-asian stereotype" who can drink 3/4 of a bottle of johnny walker without driving his car into a pole. there'd be esther park "e-poww", the korean princess with $40,000 worth of enhancements delicately applied to her face. there'd be esther chung, "the rebel", a pastor's kid trying to be an actress while bartending at gam.

how fucking awesome would that be??????????????????????????????

of course, the korean american community is going to be up in arms about the negative portrayal of korean americans but damn that shit is gonna be a moneymaker. count on it.

-

btw, that j i described is not longer the same j that passes out on the couch hugging her giant bong with red wine stains on her mouth. today our lovely j is a phd student with fabulous hair and a loving almost-fiance, back living at the shore. she still loves a nice, packed bowl every day, but hey, that's what makes her j.

Na's together and ridiculous

check out gallina's teef


roomies


wifeys


it was a night of karina's faces


um...let's never tell anyone what we almost got that night ok?

"i'll be gone" by mario basanov, vidis, jazzu

Mario Basanov, Vidis, Jazzu - I'll be gone from Serge Rush on Vimeo.

one of my favorite songs and possibly my favorite mv.