School Daze

I've been meaning to post but I've been completely caught up with school. Let's do a quick rundown. I started the semester with five classes, yesterday I dropped the Spanish class. I've already taken a similar class and need the extra time to study and prep for more labor intensive classes. Chemistry and both math classes are off to a slow start, just easing us in to the semester. The bio class is already going full steam ahead, we've already had a labor intensive lab and the lectures are intense. What else? My trig teacher is the real life version of Borat, he's some kind of eastern European and wears tight jeans, muscle tee, leather jacket, and big silver chain to class. He looks like he is about to go to a discotheque; he also flies through the material.
I'll try to update more but with school and our Internet malfunctioning lately it was a little too difficult to get on here. The only other thing worth mentioning is that I got my hair done. It's shorter and has little blond peekaboos. I'm off to enjoy my relaxing weekend before it all starts again. I will try to post on a more consistent basis and with more interesting posts but unfortunately not today.

Wander on my friends, wander on.

Ack New Semester

So the new semester starts on Tuesday. Yep, I'm still at Fullerton College and will be for the next few semesters. I'm also switching from a humanities based major to a science major. This semester I'll be taking Organismal Biology, General Chemistry I, and Spanish 102; all three of these are 5 unit classes which take a lot of work. I am also taking Trig and an Independent Study math class. I've got most of my books and school supplies ready to go, all that I've got left is to print out some materials from some class websites and put my binders together. I'm aiming for the perfect 4.0 this semester. I am also excited about my new bag for this semester. I got it at the Army-Navy surplus store; it's a Paratrooper's Messenger bag according to the tag. It's army green and can fit all my books. Plus, it's got a nice shoulder pad thing so the strap doesn't dig into my should and a whole bunch of straps that I'm not sure what to do with...yet.



I've got a new project on my mind - building two complimentary bookshelves for the shelves already in my room. Once I get the shelves built and stained I hope to embark on the crazy task of reorganizing my book system. At one point my books were alphabetically organized by author for fiction and by subject for non-fiction. Right now there are just stacks and stacks of books bursting out of my shelves. Now I am just going to organize both fiction and non-fiction together alphabetically by title. I get it's not the most orthodox way of organizing my books but I think it'll be an easy way to do it without having me get stressed out about it.



So what have I been reading, watching, etc. recently

• Reading Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien. I've wanted to read this book for a while and recently stole (with approval) from Bean's classroom. I've read a few of O'Brien's other books and really enjoyed them. So far so good.
• I watch a lot of TV but mostly movies and stuff from Netflix or online, I'm not really into live TV or regular TV I guess. But, recently I've found One Big Happy Family on TLC. I love this show, its interesting.
• http://www.chairfag.com/ The tagline for this sight is "Because you're gay for chairs." It's just got some really cool architecture and furniture; emphasis obviously being on chairs.
• The Hurt Locker - I'd heard really good things about this movie and it's director, Kathryn Bigelow. I expected it to be an action packed movie and it turned out to really trace the team leader's character. All in all I thought it was good. A way different take on the typical war movie
• The Watchmen - Hated it. I liked the individual story lines of the characters, but that killed the movie as a whole. It was just too disjointed to follow clearly. I couldn't even finish it.
• Wallander - I haven't actually seen this but I desperately want to. It stars Kenneth Branagh as Wallander, the fictional sleuth in the novels by Henning Mankell. It's from BBC and frankly I adore BBC. Most of the shows I've seen from the BBC are awesome.

That's all for now I think. Ooh, I'm planning an architecture tour of the LA area :). More on that later.

Wander on my friends, wander on.

So Very Tired

Today I am so extremely tired. Forgive me if I fall asleep while writing this. Not many exciting things happening lately. Let's see I spent 700 dollars on books today; freak, that's ridiculous. 700 dollars not including my biology which thankfully I purchased last semester. Other than that, the fambam and I played Wii Fit Plus today. Yes we've jumped on that bandwagon. Anyhow, Wii Fit has classified me as obese (whippee!!!!) and my Wii Fit Age is 40. Hahaha looks like I've got a ways to go. It was also extremely hilarious to watch my brother and dad play the hula hoop game. Two grown men shaking their hips to no music and without hula hoops. Haha I laughed for hours. Not much else has happened, but perhaps a small run-down on what I've watched recently.

• Big Love Season 3 - I've watched the first two seasons and really enjoyed them. Season 3 has gotten off to a slow start but I'm holding out for the rest of the season before I call it a dud. PS if you haven't seen Big Love, you should check it out.


• The Answer Man - Lauren Graham and Jeff Daniels. Didn't have a great showing at the box office, but it was enjoyable. Would I watch it again? No


• Blindness - Epidemic of blindness occurs, only one woman (Julianne Moore) retains her sight. She pretends to be blind to stay with her husband. They and other blind people are quarantined in an awful facility and chaos ensues. She leads them out to a city that is empty as everything has stopped due to mass blindness. I really enjoyed this movie even though my dad did not. It definitely said a lot about human nature.

• Pawn Stars - Show on the History Channel (tied as my favorite TV channel with Discovery) about a pawn shop, only instead of just buying and selling they feature unique items and throw in the history of said items. I love random information and this show is a wealth of it.

Wander on my friends, wander on.

O Boy

I love Michael Cera....I think we'd make great friends.

Lazy January Day

Today was very lazy, I spent a good chunk of my morning cuddled up with Lola, our tiny dog. For the most part Lola, aka GatoDog, is cute, cuddly and sweet. However, she also loves to pee right in front of my door. In the last week I have stepped in her pee every single day, but it is so extremely hard to get mad at that cute little face.

Exciting discovery made today....whilst cleaning my room I found a pack of magnetized bookmarks that a friend, let's call her Bean, got for me. These bookmarks are awesome!!! First, I have mild OCD, which kicks into hyper gear in regards to my books. I just don't like when they get all crinkled and dirty, but don't get me wrong I've got nothing against used to books or anything like that. I just prefer to keep my books as neat as possible.

Currently, I am sitting on the couch watching my family play tennis and bowling with the Wii. I wonder how many families choose this virtual play instead of heading to the local bowling alley or park. At least there is still familial interaction. We also had a nice family dinner at the famous Yorba Linda restaurant, Bari Bari, to end the visit of my black brother DK and his girlfriend SL. Twas fun having them in town.

Something cool that I've come across recently...Accompanying Orhan Pamuk's new novel The Museum of Innocence will be a real life museum. Pamuk will open an exhibit with 83 displays of objects having to do with the characters in the book. This museum will be in Cukurcuma, Istanbul and will open this summer. I think this is a really unique way to showcase a book/story. Thanks to the The Guardian for covering the story.

Wander on my friends, wander on.

A Return Me Thinks

A long absence spent doing mostly nothing. Originally I had the idea that this blog would become the chronicles of my actual adventures or wanderings, only to realize with school and the like that there was no time or money to go said adventures. However, other adventures are happening in my life; navigating school, working on becoming healthy and fit, and of course attempting to survive my family.

Currently, I am spending my last few weeks of vacation reading and running. The reading I love, the running not so much. Well, let's be honest it's more like walking with bursts of jogging. The goal being to lose some weight and to run a 5k in February and walking an 8k shortly after. I'm not quite sure how that'll go but I've got high hopes. As for the reading, that's going tremendously well. I've hit up some very large used books stores run by some local libraries. Can you say jackpot? I've mostly found a lot of classics with the occasional contemporary gem thrown in, but you can't argue with a quarter a book. Right now I'm reading How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. It's an older book on, well you guessed it reading a book. Moreover, how to gain understanding by becoming a more thorough reader. I'm reading this mostly because it was highly recommended by a friend but also because I think it will have some added benefit once the semester starts.

Other than that, I've been watching a lot of movies/TV shows over the last few months. Highlights below

• Hounddog - Film set in the 50s I believe starring Dakota Fanning. A young Southern girl who is obsessed with Elvis and in the pursuit of seeing him is sexually abused, but is eventually healed through song. I thought it was pretty powerful and a really good job by Ms. Fanning.
• Scrubs Season 7 - I love the silliness of this show period!
• Californication Season 2 - Some may be drawn to this show because of its dirtiness, not me. I love the dialogue, the writers are brilliant.
• Rescue Me Season 5 (both volumes) - I love this show. I'm drawn to characters that are broken like Tommy Gavin.
• Deadliest Catch - No explanations, this is my guilty pleasure show.
• Mythbusters - Another guilty pleasure. I like finding out how things really work and this show explains it all.
• Sunshine Cleaning - Amy Adams and Emily Blunt start a cleaning service for crime scenes. Just liked it.
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents - 25 minute shows or "plays" according to Hitchcock. All of them well written and suspenseful. I've been fooled by last minute twists quite a few times.

I feel like I shouldn't end on a list but I'm done for now.

Wander on my friends, wander on.