Heading to the City of Angels

October 31, 2010

1 year down, 2 to go – I can’t believe I’m 1/3 of the way through my degree already. This year has been the longest yet fastest year of my life, I swear. I also cannot believe that…

…I am going to California! Namely, Los Angeles and San Francisco. I’ve always been an impulsive person, but this is probably the biggest impulse-buy that I have ever made – I managed to get $999/return flights from Auckland to LAX and I leave on the 7th November. So far I’ve got it planned so that I spend my first day (I arrive in the afternoon that Sunday) with my sister as she has no weekend classes or activities, and I’m staying at a highly rated hostel in Hollywood. Based on my phone calls to them, they do indeed have superb service so I’m not anxious about it and I’m super excited! The other great thing about the USA Hostels chain is that (amongst other places and services offered), they have a $45 shuttle from their Hollywood hostel up to the one in San Francisco. I had been considering flying out to New York and crashing at a family friend’s place, but the flights are just far, far too expensive – a flight from LA to NY would cost almost half of what I’m paying to fly from NZ to LA, which does sort of make sense, but at the same time, urgh. I’m just going to have to go to New York next time, on a more extensive trip. Although my heart aches at the prospect of missing out this time… But the good news is, it means I’m saving all my weekends with my sister, and also any half-days of school she has. I’ll also be staying with her in her dorms at Pepperdine University – which is a promise of spectacular views and apparently a very amazing machine in the cafeteria that offers all beverages imaginable!

The other major, major thing is I have a ticket to see the Lakers vs. Bulls! It took me about three bloody hours to get a ticket last night, because Ticketmaster USA is a dickhead. For some unknown and unexplained reason, their website kept failing to sell the ticket to me. Then I rang (luckily for free, thanks to Gmail) them up and spent a couple of hours wrangling up a fake US accent and shouting down the line to their automated system. I can understand why it took several attempts to recognise me saying things like “Chicago Bulls” or “November 23rd”, but when it failed to recognise me saying “yes” or “no” – that was just too far. I ended up trying to emulate the recording’s voice in an attempt to sound, uh, more understandable? I hope when I’m thirsty in a restaurant I don’t have to try and say “water” in a US accent, because that would absolutely kill me and my dignity. I know Liv had to do it once, because us NZ kids say “war-ta” instead of “waaah-terrr”. On the other hand, I’m a little curious to see as to where people will guess I’m from, based on the fact that I look asian but certainly don’t act nor speak particularly asian-like. In fact, I can’t even put on an asian accent when speaking in English – I know white people that can do it and I can’t!

Ramblings aside – does anyone have any recommendations for food/music/sights/shopping/galleries/museums/etc in LA/San Fran or any general tips on visiting the states? Mum and friends have been trying to teach me how to tip but I don’t think I’ll ever understand completely until I have to do it in person. I’ll probably look like a moron sitting there trying to work out the smallest amount I can get away with leaving though… haha. Oh yeah, I’m also tossing up whether or not to go and see Best Coast’s gig, but the problem is, I’m apparently going to Disneyland on the day of the gig that isn’t sold out, and I think people stay at Disneyland until nighttime?

Below: miscellaneous pics from Friday, after my last assessment of the year. You won’t believe how goooood it felt. Although now I’m anxious about marks, passing, etc…
Charlotte and I had a feast at Wagamama with a voucher I had. It came to under $20 each, and we both had a big serving of noodles, edamame and lemon iced tea.

The hoodie I bought for Liv upon her request… she wanted some kind of “NZ apparel” because apparently wearing things from your hometown is big thing to do in American universities:

The Twist (I want to spell it as Twissst)

October 20, 2010

I’ve now got a backlog of photos from the three birthdays I’ve been bombarded with over the past couple of days, but I now doubt that any of them will ever see the light of day unless I get very, very bored whilst on holiday. There are so many things clogging my mind that I don’t know where to start – but in exactly 7 days’ time all my jazz assessments will be OVER, signaling the end of my first year of university. I have mixed feelings about this, because I’ve just been so mentally drained and distracted this year that I’m not doing anywhere near as well as I would have liked – which is why I’m really looking forward to summer when I can recuperate and catch up.

Completely irrelevantly, something that’s crossed my mind several times in female bathrooms: everyone except for me and members of my family use the hand dryer. I’ve never used it because my mum brought me up telling me “so you’ve just washed your hands with soap, now why would you want to blow a bunch of germs back onto your hands?!” and taught me to find the least-touched parts of toilet door handles, etc. I’m not too sure about the whole “you’re attaining germs by using the hand dryer” idea, but it’s just been such a habit. Plus, those things are damn loud and I don’t like the idea of having hot air blown onto me anyway – but people always look at me funny when I just shake my hands dry or something. It’s just one of those things that I think is definitely nurture over nature; such as my thing for beer and whiskeys, and disliking sweeter alcoholic drinks.

Photo is from Lottie’s birthday dinner last week. The giant burger and that beer made me very, very full. Bloated, even. Urghh.

As for the thing about the twist. Maybe I’ll write a song about it. I’ve got all this stuff bottled up I need to write into proper songs, rather than just little snippets of ideas. Those are awfully frustrating and get locked in notebooks and see the occasional scrawl and smeared black ink. Romance lives on too bleakly when only expressed on paper.

Rip up the proof before the damage is done

September 27, 2010

I’m not going to lie, and I’m not exaggerating, but I royally screwed up my technical assessment today, and I’m currently hoping I scrape a pass. You know something has gone terribly wrong when your teacher says you did better in a class for which you weren’t prepared, than you did in the assessment…

Anyway, I’ve told myself this is a kick up the butt, a wake up call, I need to stop procrastinating, or having bad practise habits. I have a bad tendency to get obsessive about getting one thing right at a time, and ignoring a lot of other factors I need to practise simultaneously. For the next couple of days I really need to focus my attention on completing an assignment and presentation for jazz history that is due next week.

The “substantial” text in this post is after the list.

A contrast to my usual “decent photographic posts” but all these photos are from the last couple of days and are just relevant in my day-to-day right now, I guess. They’re placed in a random, erratic order, but here’s the list:

1/ The star-shaped metal caged light – it was originally intended for a candle when we bought it, but we never used it, so mum got a friend to alter it into an electronic light. I like it better this way, and we’ve been leaving it on in the lounge at night, rather than a lamp. In fact, lots of changes seem to be taking place at home at the moment: we’ve had a new stove top installed the other day, and the new air vent thing that goes on top of it is coming in tomorrow; mum’s bought a new, oh-so-amazing mattress for her bed, as well as surprising me this morning with a big mirror over the fireplace this morning. We’d talked about getting one for years, but it never got done… til now.

2/ The cupcakes I made for Ed’s 18th on Friday. It was a bit of a scramble as I only got home from uni after 6pm, and mum made delicious scones at the same time. Our kitchen is small, and one entire bench was covered with stuff we hadn’t cleaned up, so it was quite domino effect when something was knocked over…

You can’t see it in the picture, but the cupcakes spell out “HAPPY 18TH BDAY ED”. They don’t look amazing, but it was a quick job – and luckily I had the sense to pick one up off the plate and force Ed to eat it, as they disappeared within seconds of being brought out into the party.

3/ Some of the most recent postcards I’ve received – I collect them, and always request them when people travel, or from friends overseas. I would be over the moon if I got more postcards sent my way, so please do offer! And I’ll send you one back. I loooove them. Most of these pictured ones are from mum and Liv when they went to San Francisco, Yosemite, etc before her semester started.

4/ This is the pile of books I plan on tackling tomorrow for references on Ron Carter. With the exception of Catch-22, which I still really, really need to finish, oops. Asides from that, and the Ron Carter biography at the top of the stack, the rest are all library books. That damn biography took an arm and a leg’s effort to get hold of. First I tried all the big bookstore chains in NZ to see if anyone had one, or if I could get it ordered in – nope. Then I had to order it off Amazon and try to get it delivered to my sister’s dorm in time for mum to bring it back for me, phwoar!

5/A pic of Rome and I from Friday’s party. He’s doing my usual photo-face!

Note the red cup. How American. I forgot to ask the birthday boy but apparently they bought them from an American shop. I wondered how much they cost cos usually country-specialised stores aren’t cheap. Those things were sturdy as heck, though, and I can’t wait until I get to go to the states and use them at a real American party furrealz.

There is something that’s been bothering me for a while, but I think I have mostly come to peace with: breaking up with a friend. There are big businesses made in the “help” industry with aiding people deal with breakups and heartaches – all sorts of seminars for the broken-hearted or books and stuff like that – but what do you do when it’s breaking up with a friend? It seems to be a taboo subject that is brushed under the carpet and we’re given a “live with it” kind of response from most people. But reality is, often times breaking up with a friend can actually be more painful than with a boyfriend/girlfriend.

Why? For starters, you’ve probably been with them longer (I know that’s true for myself, and for the particular person I have in mind). There isn’t meant to be some kind of ulterior motive and vested interest when it comes to a close platonic friend, therefore, if it seems that egos, face and other silly things are getting in the way, it really makes you wonder whywhywhy?!

I don’t know what I’ve ever done to a very close friend who is amongst the people I’ve known longest, but I have decided to give up seeking their approval and blaming myself for the demise of our friendship. Everyone agrees that their behaviour indicates that something is bothering them, but since they won’t tell me – I just have to live with it, and keep reminding myself that it is not my problem – at least until they have the integrity to tell me so, and make it that way. It hurts, it really fucking hurts. He was my best friend. For years and years.

I know, there’s the distance, growing up and growing apart… we’ve all been there and done that with a friend or few at some stage in our lives – where our lives simply take us different places but we drift, but that is on good terms, without feeling some sense of trauma over it. In this case it’s different, very different. I have said that I wished that we had some sort of huge argument and actual falling out, because then perhaps I would feel like I got closure, rather than constantly clinging to the fraying edges of this stupid, hurtful ordeal.

I just dance the way i feel

July 21, 2010

I hate cooking. I avoid it like people avoid cleaning their toilets. In fact, I am the least domesticated person I know. Most of my friends – guys and girls – cook on a regular basis. We’ll be txting each other and then I’ll get a “hold up, I’m just cooking *blah blah* for dinner” sort of response, whereas I’ll more likely than not be indulging in some form of other pastime until my mother or sister kindly fills the table with scrumptious edibles.

But earlier this evening, I really really really don’t know what came over me, and I offered to cook dinner for myself, mum and her visiting friend from Christchurch. I don’t have any photographic evidence to prove this (dammit, I knew I forgot something!) but I miraculously whipped up steak with fried eggs, mushrooms topped with bacon and cheese, and a salad and steamed vegetables to go with it all. As if that wasn’t enough, some strange sensation came over me as if someone had cast the Imperius Curse on me, and I declared that I was going to make cupcakes. And ice them too. We ran out of icing sugar so I only managed to ice about 3/4 of them, and the end results are below.

Has anybody else been suddenly inclined to do something that they usually hate?

I’m feeling as terribly weird yet very proud. I’m also very proud of having survived my day at university today. Lack of sleep all week has been catching up with me, but I somehow emerged lively as ever after 4 hours straight of bass playing. Of both assortments.

1/ I’m loving the rain. People keep complaining about it but I think it’s amazing.
2/ Very happy with having Thursdays off on my timetable. Going to bathe in the hot springs tomorrow to loosen up and hopefully feel better. This 3-week cold NEEDS TO LEAVE ME.
3/ I’m photographing the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club concert in Auckland on Friday.

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