The Wonderful Thing About Tigger

Today was a lovely day. Christmas breakfast in the morning included pouched salmon in vegetable gelatin (the description doesn't do its presentation and deliciousness an justice), some ham, horse-radish, and bread. Then I went to the beach. Isn't San Diego amazing? This has really been one of the best Christmas holidays in years. Everyone was so happy. No one was stressed, nobody was yelling at each other, and nobody got killed by a tiger.

Unlike somebody today. Did you hear about this?

Read the article at CNN.com.

Can you imagine how terrible that would be? I know I transitioned into this subject in a manner that was a little unsensitive, but really... I can't even imagine that. Sitting in a café and seeing a tiger? And then to be attacked?I would just think it to be a dream. What a horrible thing to happen on a holiday which is for spending time with your loved ones.

Oh well. It's too bad that someone got killed, but I think it's just as bad that they killed the tiger. There are less tigers in the world than people, and we got to keep the gene pools strong in in both. For the tiger: we just need as many individuals as possible to diversify the population. For the human: this allows those with adequate escape and/or tiger-fighting skills to survive and pass on those qualities to subsequent generations. Excellent!

But really now, what would you expect a tiger to do? Not take the opportunity to possibly escape its restricted life? It doesn't know that there isn't a place it can go outside of its fenced-off area. If you think about it, more dangerous things are released all the time without too much of a second-thought. Think about how many rapists, child molesters, murders, drug dealers, etc. end up getting out of prison, or who go unconvicted. Those people hurt many more others much more often. But I guess, how are you supposed to restrain a tiger? Can it even be restrained? When it's running around killing people it's difficult to try to tranquilize it. Such a method doesn't always work, and I'm sure that a pissed off animals that has just been who with something would attack the shooter first.

Man. That's crazy. I might have to change my mind about wanting a tiger.

Herring Day

Tonight was Christmas Eve, which my family celebrates in leu of the regular Christmas Day. To my knowledge, this bares minimal, if any, religious significance given that I am an atheist, my dad thinks religion is for the weak-minded, and my mom just agrees with my dad. Actually, my mom was never really religious, and she's never approved of me hanging out with religious loonies. It was actually a surprise a few years ago when I found out I had never been baptized. We had gone to church when we lived in Canada, so that was a little interesting. Apparently, it's still a little bit of an issue between my mom and grandma.

I'm happy that I was never baptized. I like to think that a person should be able to make these sort of decisions on there own. Otherwise, the least they could do would be to offer some sort of anti-baptismal procedure -- which I don't think they do. I think faith is an extremely personal thing, and in my opinion people can choose to believe in anything they want, but I never fancied the notion of brainwashing children into believing in something. But I guess it's not really brainwashing if you believe it yourself; then it's just called "teaching."

The day was filled with tons of cooking, but yielded very little results quantitatively. When we sat down at the table, my mom and I were surprised at how much work we did with so few items on the table. Essentially, we had only the following:

1.) Bread (which had to be picked up at the bakery in Hillcrest this morning. Me at 8am)
2.) Herring with onions
3.) Pastries filled with mushrooms
4.) Borscht (beet soup)
5.) Potato and vegetable salad
6.) jam-filled cookie things

wow.
Really?

I guess things just take a really long time. Everything is time-consuming. It was way better this year than last, because I helped out with everything. Last year for some reason, my mom did a lot and it was too hard on her. It was actually fun, and when things started to frustrate her, I just stepped in and did it myself and amazed her with my novelty-talent of the moment.

Christmas Eve, to mean, is a way for me to connect culturally with my heritage through food. These are things that I love, and there is a history behind them all. It's simple food, and the most delicious food I've ever had. It's so incredibly important to me to learn how to make all of these things, because really, it's morbid to admit it, but one day there won't be someone to ask how to do it. My mom, dad, and brother are the the only family I have here (and my brother is not really good for anything here). I'm so far away from any other family, so it means a lot to me to be close to them and to connect.

Also. I went to the beach with my mom today. I told Justin this to make him jealous. He just replied that he too went to the beach, but you couldn't really see it... oh snow. I can't wait to go sledding. :-)

fyi: that's not a picture of our actual herring. But it looked very similar. minus the capers I guess. Plus onions and cranberries and lemon. Ours was better. I love herring. Wow, I love herring. When I went to Norway and Finland, I judged the quality of the hotel by the quality and variety of herring served at breakfast. Finland won. For sure.

Party Like It's 1984

My dad has become increasingly convinced that the government is spying on everyone, and that everyone in the world is selfishly attempting to exploit you or are take advantage of you.

At times, his philosophies have been entertaining, but when they get mentioned a lot over the span of a day or two, it's kind of annoying. There is always a video to watch about how advertisers are evil, the end of privacy, and how there is someone watching you.

Granted, I think the documentaries he recommends would be interesting to watch, but I think that they tend to take things a little too far. Pretty much like any far left or far right propaganda. Because these sort of films are never balanced per se, I always come out of watching them feeling like I believe nothing from the film. When they go too far, they destroy their own credibility.

I'll watch one sometime this weekend. Probably the one about advertising, because I think I'd find more truth in that one. I'm sorry -- but advertisers really are out to find out about you and exploit you -- that's just their very nature.

I am also very tired right now. I've undertaken the massive task of cleaning and organizing my closet. I have only a few stray pieces of clothing to take care of, but those will be dealt with tomorrow. I'd like to read a couple chapters of "The Poisonwood Bible" before bed. It's so good. It got passed from Justin's mom, to Justin, and then to me. But I was already reading the 750 page mass called "The Fountainhead," (and I would love to write about my reactions to the book at objectivism, but that will have to wait) so I passed to book to my roommate Rachel, who plowed through it in a couple of days, and passed it onto me... but I was still digging through the goddamn Fountainhead, so only started reading the book a few days ago. It's great. It's amazing. I need to finish it before I head up to Minnesota so that I can give it back to Justin's mom. Complete the circle, you know.

Bobby Pins

Saw Bobby today. He was in Rome, and quite a few other places, since August. It was nice seeing him back. I drove all the way down to Chula Vista tonight to go have dinner with him and Jason. I split carne asada fries with Bobby. Anyways, I love going to his house, because the dogs make it such an event for me. I start walking up to the door and his three golden retrievers start a freak-out session. One barking, one licking, another rushing around me or trying to escape throught the door.

Bobby made what I believe to be a great mistake this evening: he told Jason about the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion pack. This caused Jason to prompty re-install WOW and re-activate his account. Goodbye life for him.

Finished up some xmas shopping with Eric today. Old Poon-ed it. Played Wii. Sucked at all the games except bowling. But that still made me feel good. Saw Peter and Scott too. Amazing.

Goodnight.

New Day

Today is a new day.
Finally.

And you know, every new days begins with a shower.

And off I go.

I think I'll call up some people and hit the sun.

Last One

Too many things in my room are glowing.

1.) computer "sleep" light (white)
2.) computer "charge" light (orange... will turn to green when charged)
3.) cellphone (because it's plugged in to charge)

I swear to God that this combination is lighting my entire room.

My pillow is also uncomfortable. There is an odd, definite difference in texture compared to my sheets.

I also just have so much on my mind.

I've decided that I really hate birthdays. I don't really like getting wished happy birthday. It's awkward to me. I guess it's because I never really had my own birthday parties when I was younger. It just feels out of place for people to care, and having only one birthday a year does not allot me ample time to practice getting better at it. I don't care for birthdays. It feels odd to celebrate myself when there are still parts of me not worth celebrating. I don't want to be selfless and I don't want to be selfish. I don't want to want. I simply should exist. And do. And feel.

And considering I haven't had a good birthday in years, I'm letting it go. Everything would be so much better if it was just like a normal day. Ok. A thoughtful present is always nice, but not required. I think the think I dislike most is this pressure to "do something." To go out, to have dinner, to make myself feel good. I don't want to have to decide to do things when I would just like to sit and relax, or go for a walk. I feel too much pressure to satisfy other people as a consequence of my own indifference.

To be honest, my favorite part of my birthday was coffee and scrabble, and sitting with my parents on the couch as they started falling asleep.

Ass-paragus

Well.

It's 2200 hours here. Haha. Seems appropriate, eh?
It's midnight there.


Oh, he is so getting asparagus for christmas. God, he hates asparagus.

Birthday Accomplished

ok. Come on, Susanne. Last entry on Dec. 11th? This is supposed to be a meager collection of the riveting, the wonderful, the interesting aspects of my sometimes very mundane life. And to think, that things of interest to in fact happen to me?

Such as:
Day 1: Unknowingly being recognized at Undie-Run (in my underwear of course) by the Captain of the UCPD, and having him tell Justin, "hey, I saw your girlfriend at Undie-Run tonight!"
Day 2: Sitting at the desk in my uniform at the police station, and having the Captain walk by saying, "You look different tonight," and giving me that smile and wink that only a man which you know to be incredibly nice, and at which you have fired simunition rounds while pretending to be a terrorist, could be a loud to give.

Also, a lot of things in life have been pissing me off, and a lot of things have been wonderful.

Needless-to-say, I turned 22 tonight. My pact to not eat ice cream over the course of the last 1.5 months was broken promptly at 1230am this morning with a spoon of häagen-dazs pineapple-coconut. Delicious. And again this afternoon with a spoon of Cherry Garcia. Life is grand. Eat well.

Birthday greetings occurred in the following order:
1.) Lety
2.) Bobby
3.) Bryan
4.) Indi
5.) Vicky
6.) Dianne
7.) Kylie
8.) Yuen
9.) Peter
10.) Eric (coffee and swift abandonment)
11.) Jon
12.) John

considering I haven't seen a couple of those people in years and that one KEY person is missing on the list... ahem....

I figure, what the hell?, let's become a lesbian.

People's sexuality can be on any part of a broad spectrum ranging from flaming homosexual to flame-throwing homophob. I'll just push my arrow more to the left.

Anyways, 22. That's old. Eric called me old today, but that's ok, because he's young. I'm automatically considered old to any person who is over a year younger that me. And since he beat me at scrabble, and bought me coffee and a cinnamon bun, he can say whatever the hell he wants.

And my mom just called me old. That's ok. She's older. Like old older.

Tomorrow, I'm gleefully meeting up with Bobby for tacos or mexican food of a similar nature. Considering all Mexican food can be pretty much summed up by the description of "tortilla and stuff" I'm excited.

Ok. Tea-time. It's my birthday, and I'm excited that I don't really care. That all I want to do is relax, eat what I want, drink what I want, and have coffee with a friend. Success. Well, except for that one phone-call I'm awaited. I haven't bought him a Christmas present yet, so I'll determine what I' get him based up how soon (if at all) he calls, and if he's sober. Last year it was 9:30pm (11:30pm his time) and drunk as shit, and I talked mostly to his friends. What did I get him last year? Shit. Hell if I remember. I'll give an update on what his possible gift may be later tonight. ;-)

Retraction of Attraction

I'm taking a break from writing my biochemistry research paper to make a very important complaint.
About the CoffeeBean.

Remember that "free wireless?" Yeah. I don't know what happened to that. I went there last night only to find that they were charging $10 a day for it again. And I, with my shitty wireless detection capabilities, was surrounded by internet-browsing people who were able to detect the UCLAWAN signal strongly enough. I was just trying to check my email, but after 500 failed attempts to secure a VPN connection for more that 8 seconds, I gave up... and simply tried to do my work.

And then I paid $2 for a tea.

There's another coffee place in westwood that has internet, and you just have to buy something for them to give you the code. I don't mind that. You use their facilities, you take up their space, you ought to buy something. Plus, coffee their is slightly cheaper as it is not a celebrity-infested chain.

I can't wait unti the time whne the entire city is Wireless. For free. Anywhere. I'd be so up for it. That way I wouldn't have to find myself in trendy liquid addiction outlets for a chance at internet freedom.

The Outdoors

Finals are this coming week. Luckily I have a lot of non-final things to distract me.

I've been inside all day, and my productivity level has dropped significantly. Very very significantly. This is what I get for studying in an apartment rather than going off somewhere into Westwood. I'll have learned my lesson for tomorrow. I'm going to be working tonight as a favor to Justin so he can finish writing his paper. It'll be nice to leave for the outside world a bit, especially now that I have biking pants, so my legs won't be freezing off in the LA air. Oh, it gets cold here. Those of you who live in the "north" don't know what it's like here in the south.

Speaking of cold, my mom told me that Minnesota is headed for a big winter. She seemed to take a bit of pleasure in this fact because I'm heading up there to good olde Minnetonka for New Year's. Just 5 days. That's if I make it there, and make it back too. She likes pointing out the temperature discrepencies between Minnesota and Southern California. I think it helps her feel as though with every degree of seperation in temperature, is a decrease in the chance that I would choose to move there.

I have to admit. It's nice to be able to wear flip-flops and a dress in December. You can't really beat that.

At first, I wasn't sure if I was going to go to Minnesota, but then when I heard my friends' annual Mammoth Trip got canceled due to Eric's Thailand excursion, the choice was much clearer. I hope my dad isn't mad at me for going. He's going to be down in SD over winter break, and while I am going to see him for two weeks, as well as see him when I get back from the MidWest, he hasn't really sent me an email or given me a call since I mentioned it to him. I'm just going to assume that he's very busy and that he thinks I am very busy -- true, true and true.

I was just looking at my Nicaragua photos. God, I can't wait to get back to some sort of forest where there are frogs and birds, and bugs. I miss it so much. I can't wait to go to Belize and be back in that environment, learning, working. I remember Kris saying that her bf visited her in Bolivia for a couple of weeks when she was doing work down there, so I wonder if Justin might be able to come for the last week or so of my trip down there. Or even for a couple in the middle. I guess I'll see what the living situation is like, and where the hell we are exactly, and maybe be able to give him directions to wherever the heck we are. I think he would like it a lot. Plus, he's cute so maybe Kris wouldn't mind. As long as I'm doing my job at night, right? The day is free game.

Oh God. Everyone in my apartment is studying. I feel the guilt poring over me. Must return to my excell spreadsheets.