Hi!

it's been over a year since I've last written in here...

And I'm not really sure what prompted me to stop writing in the first place since I still somewhat regularly wrote in my real handwritten journal.

...

After staying up with Raymond working on Chinese stuff (yea it's 4:18am) ... we were looking up each other's names and then onto people's old Xangas... when I suddenly remembered that MY BLOGSPOT ACCOUNT IS STILL ALIVE SOMEWHERE

So that's how I ended up here...

Oh okay let's see...

I'm a junior now at CMU... hey I'm still at CMU, surprise! Considering that a lot of my CMU entries were so utterly depressing -- "I hate my life, I'm such an idiot, CS kicks my ass, I fucking hate the people that backstab me" -- I'm surprised that I'm still here.

But life has definitely improved over the last two years... I think I've finally "adjusted" to life/schoolwork here, although yes, some classes still kick my ass.

I remember writing entries at weird hours of the night... because that's when it flows the most. I am not sure why because I find this to be true for normal face-to-face conversations as well.. People reveal the most late, late at night.

Oh I'm really hungry.

And I should sleep.

Okay more later, my love..

I am so sorry. I am alive, I really am.

And the past month I just got an epiphany: that I love him. I love him so much.

I think I'm depressed again...

I'm actually pretty happy right now.

I got a 60 on my Great Theoretical Ideas of CS test. The average was a 62. I did MUCH better than I thought I did. Thought I got a 30...I think I have a B now. That's really sad that a 60... a 60 BROUGHT UP MY GRADE. I need to do better.

People say it is a lot easier after 251. I really really hope so.

I also got an A on my English paper. We only have 3 papers in this class, so I am 1/3 done. I better get A's on my other papers. Otherwise I have like, no shot of an A in the class. It's an awesome class. Everyone who goes to CMU, take Shakespeare in the Spring with Professor Witmore!

I also got a 100 on my Programming lab... first 100 in awhile.

I also got a pretty decent room for next year along with quirky but cool roommate! My room is REALLY big with HIGH ceilings and BRIGHT atmosphere. I'm content with it, with what I could get.

I'm on a roll. But you know something's gonna happen eventually that will bring my world crashing to a halt. CMU tends to do that to you: give you a lot of good things then WABAM have the sky fall on you.

ICB was too fun.

I met David L and Tim H, and I got closer with Natalie, who, by the way, is my FRIEND NOW. A funny incident happened in the ladies' room... she was complaining about how dryers don't work very well, and I said, "Yes, that's why you dry them on a friend" and she proceeded to dry her hands on me...

"...A friend that's not me!" -Dani

^_^

I am doing Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Band, and although the music is actually pretty challenging and I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm amongst mostly music majors, I'm still having a good time.

Mr. Gerlach (my director from CMU) is an absolute dear. He's so funny!

I've met some cool people from CMU today that also went on the trip... good times. Two of them came to chill in my SINGLE HOTEL ROOM! I said I wanted a single bed, not necessarily a single room, but I got the single room, which is very nice. What is also funny is that last time I went on a overnight band trip (All-State), I got the single room, too, but only because I was the only girl on the trip.

I am glad Natalie came on this trip. I got to know her a little better this time. She's quite dry and sarcastic and witty, which is awesome.

More later. I should go to bed soon...

OHHHHHH.

Dani has jealousy issues. Dani has friendship issues.

This situation is not unique. I've had this happen before, and each time, I did not deal with it at all. Am I destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again?

Whoa, whoa, Dani. Dani.

This is stupid of you.

Stop killing yourself over a guy. Especially when there's probably nothing wrong, and it's all in your head.

Stop this, stop this, stop this.

Hello,

So it has been awhile since I posted any of significance here.

School has been dominating my life, and lately the feeling of despair is drowning me.

I cannot seem to cope very well with stress. The things that I do to cope with stress: exercising, chatting with friends, sleeping, eating random delicacies, talking on the phone, reading the newspaper, writing in my journal... they all help but sometimes the stress is just so overwhelming that anything I do doesn't help.

Carnegie Mellon University's stress levels are, well, pretty high, especially if you are in the School of Computer Science where they have super annoying classes like Great Theoretical Ideas of CS that take up 20+ hours of your life in terms of homework. Sigh. Everyone is struggling too, but I feel like I'm struggling more than usual.

I scheduled an appointment with a counselor. Hopefully this helps.

I feel clueless.

Carnegie Mellon University CS Department is very good at making you feel absolutely dumb. Like everything you ever learned does not apply to any of the classes.

Well, it's still one HUUUUGE learning process for me in any of my CS courses. I think that's why I'm having sooo much difficulty with this. If I were in classes with people like me: have not had much exposure to this, I would feel a lot more comfortable.

But no, I'm in classrooms with geniuses.

And it makes me feel like a total, complete idiot.

Greetings from Orlando, Florida.

My Christmas yesterday was a little gloomy. The weather was rainy and grey... I wanted a good Christmas dinner but instead got more takeout. I've been craving good old-fashioned handmade dinners (well, food) for awhile because I've been living on college food/fast food for 4 months now...

Anyway, yesterday my family and I went to Downtown Disney because nothing else is open, of course... well of course, everyone in Orlando happened to be there! Even though it was Christmas Day, I still saw no sales. Man that place is really fun to window shop, but they never have any sales... :( Hahaha. I did go to the Virgin Megastore though and spend $4 on coffee. Yeah, I know it's the Starbucks thing: spending wayyy too much money on a cup of coffee, but I guess I didn't grow up with the spending $0.25/cup of coffee... hahaha so to me, $3-$4 is the norm? That's kind of scary, actually.

Anyway. Everything that I remembered about Downtown Disney is the same. The decor, the atmosphere, the Rainforest Cafe (ah, yes, all the animals) ... I just wish that I could bring about the urge to spend money over there on merchandise but... well, I don't really need a lot of the stuff, and the stuff that I do like/need (CLOTHING) is sooo expensive. :( Alas, Orlando, why must you cost so much?

So my family's been spending about $30-$40 per meal in Orlando, which is typical. Something tells me that we need to start cooking more! It'll definitely be a lot cheaper, and I DO miss home-cooked food! Who knows how many grams (KILOGRAMS!!) of trans fat I have consumed these past 4 months.

TODAY, my family and I went to the Florida Mall. Once again, all of Orlando (and more) was there. I saw a cute (and I usually don't say this of many articles of clothing) striped sweater at bebe but unfortunately it was $75. Uh, I can't afford that kind of money on clothing (funny that I'm going to a private institution that's costing my family like 40k/year). And also, no matter how many times I walk into an A&F or an AE, I can't seem to buy anything. I used to claim that I love AE (American Eagle) but in reality, I haven't bought anything from that store in over 2 years. The prices never seem to go low enough for me :o) $10 and under is usually my limit (sad, but true) especially for shirts (maybe $15-$20 for pants but only if the material is good). Well well that limits my options, does it not? ^_^

I'm going to go chill in the lobby some more.

I thought once I came back home to Georgia, I would be stress free...I mean school's over for the semester! But now... As I'm about to go to bed, I still feel really troubled. And I hate sleeping with a heavy mind but I've been doing that all semester (if I get any sleep at all).

Lately I've been having trouble sleeping (... again! I thought I got this issue resolved) and so I had to go back to my melatonin pills. Hated it but then the alternative would be to lie awake until 6am.

I talked to one of my good friends about life issues the other day...haven't really talked to her in awhile and missed her chats... just got me thinking about what the hell do I really want in life, and if I should do things for myself, not just performing actions based on what others say/think/expect of me. Is that what I've been doing my entire life? Not thinking for myself? Just going on blindly?

I've definitely been questioning a lot of things in life lately. As I grow older, I should be gradually starting to learn how to make decisions for myself. I don't know why I find this everyday task so hard to do, but I realize now that... wow, I really don't decide a lot of things for myself but am often pushed around by what others (especially... FAMILY) say. But then I ask myself, "Dani, what do you want?" And a lot of times, I can't answer...

Oh, why am I so complex? Why can't certain things for me just be a yes/no type thing like it should be as I just sit back and just weigh out the options until the end of time?

I guess I just wanted everything to be figured out. Right. Now. But then she told me, "You're 19, you don't have to have things figured out entirely right now."

I hate how I can't sleep when I go through moods like this (which is often). I hate how a lot of nights I lie there, thinking too much and just being tormented...

Hey.

I'm alive, but not that well.

I'm also a year older - I'm 19 now and one more year closer to saying goodbye to my teenage years.

I got a C in a class. Holy crap. CMU kicks my ass in every single way. I hope my other grades are all B's (with 1-2 A's).

I've changed a lot. I've learned a lot. I wish I did a better job of documenting my changes on Blogger. Alas. My real journal is a better indicator of that, though.

Anyway it's late, I should go to bed. I have an exam Tuesday afternoon, then it's back to Georgia for me on Wednesday. I'm sad that this semester passed by so quickly. It feels like time is slipping away from my hands.

Holy crap, I have not blogged in awhile.

Oh and yea, I cut my hair so this current profile picture is not up to date, obviously. I'll post a better picture later, all right?

Life at CMU is...

FUN!

but

ROUGH!

The schoolwork is the biggest part of my worries. Fun, I have no problem having fun, but when the grades come in, it's like "...Crap. I should have studied 20 hours instead of a mere 8" so yeah. Such is life.

I guess I'm getting used to this heavy heavy workload though. It's definitely a step up from high school. My high school definitely did not prepare me well - I mean, yeah, I definitely worked hard in high school, but the work compared to CMU's work is DEFINITELY small fry. Definitely.

Here the class averages tend to be around 60's... If I get around there, I'm pretty content. Except for that one test when I scored terribly low. Oh God. I have a feeling that it's gonna be happening a lot, though... such is the world of CS here.

I have a Xanga where I randomly rant about different aspects of my life, yup.

I'm leaving for Pittsburgh tomorrow! :O So the day that I've been working for for the past 4 years has come - when I leave for college... You never think the day will come but it always comes faster than you think.

I'm really excited. Of course, nervous, apprehensive, etc. etc. but those are normal feelings. I've met some awesome people online already, and I hope they're just as awesome in real life as they are online. You know how some people differ VERY MUCH between real life and online? The reticient people in real life talk your ear off online and vice versa.

I'm in love with ??? (JJ Lin if you can't see the Chinese - get your encoding on!). His songs are always so sappy (and sometimes cheesy) but he's one of the few that can pull of the "cute" thing. A lot of Chinese songs sound the same, actually, and the subject is usually about love. No points for originality, but for some reason I still listen to them (esp. male singers) excessively!

I'm really going to miss my Shih-Tzu dog, Sugar. :( She's been a part of my life since 1998, and it'll be a few months before I see her again. I'll miss my family too, no matter how obnoxious they can be sometimes :D especially my sisters. But hey, you love someone regardless of the flaws, right?

Hey, I'm alive.

I've been busy with working, mostly evenings. I also stay up until 2-3 am in the morning because I'm too addicted to playing video games. :) I also have been busy reading a lot of gaming/computing books from the library. It's a whole different world, and I'm interested in pursuing it :)

I've also been busy buying/selling stuff on eBay. The fees are absolutely dreadful, and so are the fees on Amazon. They take away a HUGE % of your earnings -_- if you mess around with the numbers, a lot of times you can earn less than what you have put your price to be! Hmmph.

To my dismay, I bought a book for school online, and the seller stated that it was "Like never, never been used" but I opened the book today and there were soooo many highlightings/underlinings IN PEN. Doesn't look LIKE NEW to me. =\ I'm tempted to leave negative feedback...

QUOTATIONS GALORE.

I just finished watching the movie Garden State. I saw Chicken Little awhile back, so whenever in the movie, Zach Braff (playing Andrew Largeman) got indignant, his voice sounded exactly like his in Chicken Little! It was fabulous.

I loved the part in Sam's bedroom (Sam is played by Natalie Portman) when she says that if she feels uninspired she goes to a spot and makes a noise/movement that has never been done before in the history of mankind. "You've just witnessed history!" :D And she goes to a spot and does this weird dance with even weirder noises. I laughed.

There were a lot of quotes that I liked, so if you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want me to ruin it, then don't read what is below this line that has anything to do with Garden State.

This is the scene at the doctor's office when Sam and Andrew first meet. Andrew acts in L.A. and he is back in New Jersey:
Sam: Are you really retarded?
Andrew: No.
Sam: Ooh, great job man! I really thought you were retarded. I mean, you're better than that Corky kid and he's actually retarded. If there was a retarded Oscar you would win, hands down, kick his ass!

And of course... a few minutes later:
Sam: Wow! I cannot believe you're not retarded!

And of course can't forget the touching lines: This following excerpt was said while Andrew and Sam were in the bathtub where his mom drowned (weird, huh?)

Andrew: You know, this necklace makes me think of this totally random memory of my mother. I was a little kid, and I was crying for one reason or another. And she was cradling me, rocking me back and forth, and I can just remember the silver balls rolling around. And there was like snot running down my nose. And she offered me her sleeve and told me to blow my nose into it. And I can remember, even as a little kid, thinking to myself, this is love... this is love.

And of course... later:
Andrew: F***, this hurts so much.
Sam: I know it hurts. But it's life, and it's real. And sometimes it f***ing hurts, but it's life, and it's pretty much all we got.

Okay, end Garden State. I've actually watched a movie that I really wouldn't mind watching again sometime. It's not perfect but it was cute.

Retail is Not All It's Cracked Up To Be

So I've been working for awhile at Stein Mart now, back in the shoe department. You know, everyone in high school wanted to work retail: trendy clothing stores, etc. Well, most people do not realize until they get there that working retail is really quite a pain and definitely does not pay enough for what employees have to deal with every single day. People are messy. My co-worker made a very good point when she muttered to me:

"I hate cleaning up... after grown women."

Amen!

People leave shoes lying around on the floor. They flip display shoes around (why do you do that?!). They leave boxes lying around on the chairs. They don't use socks when trying on shoes (99.9% of people do this, and I am proud to say that I will never try on shoes without those socks again -_-). They put boxes in wherever they feel like it.

It's enough to make a usually calm woman be on the verge of screaming.

Sorry, I lied (like Sam) and I'll end with a quote from the movie:

So what do we do? What do we do?

Today, I watched West Side Story (1961) and I LOVED IT. A few years ago, for the Chinese Association Chinese New Year dances, someone coordinated a dance with us Chinese girls and guys to the WSS "America." He let us watch the movie clip of the "America" dance and I thought it was very upbeat and cute. Now, like four years later, I finally watched the whole movie and fell in love with it.

Few movies make me shiver, and a few times I felt goosebumps run up and down my body. I was definitely in awe of the magic. :D I read Roger Ebert's review and thought that Anita's and Bernardo's performances were probably better, more emotional (and Bernado looked better looking than Tony did, but that's just my humble opinion), but Maria (Natalie Wood)'s final speech after Tony dies made me shed tears "Now I have hate too" :(

What was up with the tomboy girl with the Sharks?

Oh the other day, I watched Superman Returns with my friend Shuaib. :) The movie was so... emotional, not really an action flick like the other superhero/Marvel movies tend to be. The better superhero flicks tend to be more emotional and exploring the psyche of the hero(es) and tends to be more dark; ie: Batman Begins. I didn't feel emotionally satifsying watching Superman Returns (and I don't think Kate Bosworth is pretty... sorry.) despite Singer's funny-haha moments in the movie that he loves inserting! At the end, I was like, "Okay so basically nothing really has changed..." [SPOILER?] I think Lois ends up with her new boy because it's been too long.

My feet hurt.

Today was the day I chose to wear heels. However, today at work (I work at Stein Mart, shoe dpt.) I had to bend down a lot, inspecting shoes. Ow, ow ow. I fear these red marks won't go away! I did A LOT of work today. Yesterday, which was my first day of work, was cleaning (-_- I am not a maid) and today I had to match up colors of shoes. I ended up switching out a lot of the shelves' cards with each other and moving around shoes. I know a million different brands of shoes now - Italian Shoe Maker, Anne Klein, RL, Unisa, Bandolino, Danelle.

"Sisters" are shoes that are the same brand and style but different colors. "Cousins" are shoes that are the same brand but different styles. "Sisters" need to be together at all times but "Cousins" cannot be together. Weird, right. Well I guess that makes sense. Today I spotted some "Cousins" next to each other and moved them myself. Instead of moving the entire shelf as the other co-workers do, I simply take out the plastic cardholders and switch them. I don't know if they have never done that before or what, but I am not taking out any more shelves because they're kind of difficult to wrench out. I told my co-worker F that and she was really proud of me!

The job is really not bad. I basically walk around inspecting stuff all day and answer random questions. $6.50/hour is not that bad. It's above minimum wage! Maybe I'll get a raise but I doubt it. I'm leaving August 18 or so for CMU!

I really need to figure out how to cross-post between Xanga and Blogger. Nobody posts in Xanga much anymore, so I really don't know why I keep up with Xanga anyway. :) I also need to write more meaningful entries in both Xanga and Blogger.

You know how I'm always advocating writing in journals (real life ones)? Haha, I need to update my real ones ASAP because I tend to fall behind 3 days. You know what, a lot can happen in 72 hours. A lot than I can forget. :
Well well this summer has been the summer of movies for me. I've watched more movies this summer than I have all of 2005. Sad, huh. Here's a list of summer 2006 movies I've seen:

• The Princess Bride


• Taxi Driver


• Princess Mononoke


• X-Men 2


• X-Men 3


• United 93


• Zoolander

I also saw parts of Old School again (love that movie) and parts of Bridget Jones' Diary 2 - I had no idea that Hugh Grant is the "bad" character in the story. :O Aw, the Pride and Prejudice story...

Zoolander's plot is so dumb but Ben Stiller is so hilarious. :D Will Ferrell had his moments too as Mugatu (what the heck). I LAUGHED for a minute when Christine Taylor's character admitted she was the fat kid in school in 7th grade, and Zoolander (Ben Stiller) replies: "...EW!"

United 93 is a heartwrenching movie to watch because you know what's going to happen, but I think the movie did a good job portraying the confusion and heartache that day. It made me mad watching the movie because the U.S. goverment was basically all talk, little action.

I've also been reading a lot of novels from the library. One author that I have found charming is Alexander McCall Smith. He's living in Scotland right now - I love his satirical novels.

Now I'm going to go read and probably watch Elephant the movie. I heard it was really good and it won the 2003 Cannes Film Festival award (Best Director?). I'm getting a lot of recommendations from my friend DAVID LEE so thanks, David.