Monthly Archives: April 2012

anime, goodness, humor, nerd

I made this

I’ve re-watched the first couple episodes of Avatar: Legend of Korra, and this part just kills me.  Meelo has been cemented as my favorite character so far.  What a stinker.

If you don’t know about this series, let me make your day a little better.  It’s a sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is an amazing series (ignore the disaster of a movie).  The fight scenes are great, the characters are easy to love, and the series, which starts out as childish, becomes dark and emotionally deep.  You’ll love it.

kids can be so cruel

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goodness, humor

Bear shenanigans

This photo has not been altered.  This actually happened.  A bear comically dropped out of a tree the other day after being tranquilized near a university.  The students got to pet its paws before it was taken away.  So cute.

it looks like a bear on a trampoline

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badness, goodness, nerd, school

Too hot to handle

glyph I saw on a stela at La Milpa, Belize

I woke up yesterday feeling good.  I got an email a couple weeks ago from a friend and professor at UCLA, asking if I could lead his class through the ancient Maya exhibit at LACMA.  Of course I accepted, and it went great.  I was nervous the day before, but I pulled the class in front of a stela, and my mouth just started moving and I was awesome.  So much fun!  Once again (just like when I landed Karate Job), it was a small dream come true: I got to teach a group of college students about the ancient Maya.

I got home to dote on Diminutive Roommate, who is recovering from some minor surgery.  Her mom came into town for it, and she’s the best.  DR is healing quickly, and being a real champ about it.  I think it really helps that her mom is here to be doctorly and motherly.  She’s pretty great.  We played Epic Spell Wars: Duel at Mount Skullzfyre, and had a little caramel Bailey’s.  I can’t imagine my mom rolling with that kind of plan.  She’s so full of judgement.  Plus, we’d have to get her out of the house first.

Anyway, Diminutive Roommate has been sick for a couple of weeks, and I’ve been keeping my distance whenever I could to make sure I didn’t catch anything (although the kids at the dojo have been pretty nose-picky lately).  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  My throat started hurting around 8pm.  Within an hour I was sore everywhere and exhausted.  I woke up this morning with a fever of 100.1.  Crap.  I emailed both jobs and said I wouldn’t be coming in.  I’d just be arriving at Karate Job right now if I’d been healthy today.

Sister shared a memory with my family a little while ago that once, when I was sick with a fever, she covered me with blankets just like my folks told her to when they left for work.  When they came back, I had a fever of 105 or something, and they got mad at her for putting all those blankets on me.  We were just kids, she didn’t know any better.  Still, she was next to tears when told us about that.  I don’t remember that at all.  She obviously still feels responsible.  Poor Sister.

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goodness, nerd

Gargoyles

classy and deadly

Gargoyles is one of the cartoons that defined the kind of person I wanted to grow up to be.  One of the main characters, Detective Maza, was a beautiful, straightforward cop who kicked all kinds of ass and didn’t take shit from anyone.  She’s a gun-toting, badge-wearing, ass-kicking justice machine who had gargoyles for friends.  Naturally, she was my idol.  Plus I wanted to be a gargoyle.  So epic.  The series was full of strong female characters.  Even the evil ones like Demona were admirable.

Gargoyles was such a great series.  It was beautifully illustrated, flooded with mythology and voiced by half of the Star Trek TNG cast.  There’s nothing to dislike about this series other than the fact that it only ran for three seasons, and Disney has given up on releasing it on DVD in full due to poor first season sales.  Goddammit.  I’m reduced to watching it online.

the understated love story was almost too subtle for me at the time

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badness

Healthy and horrified

basically a weekly visitation from this guy

When I spent a month in the jungles of Belize doing archaeology, digging an ancient Maya ballcourt, I had to get all kinds of vaccines and take malaria medication once per week for a few weeks before and after, and every week during my stay there.  When the doctor told me of the side effects (dizziness, upset stomach, etc.) he neglected the one that would have caught my attention: nightmares.  It also happens to be the most common side effect, so common, in fact, that almost every other member of the archaeology team who was on this medication experienced them.

These nightmares were exceptionally graphic, bloody and violent, and everyone had them.  Once we realized what was happening, we instinctively made little support groups.  The people who took their malaria pills on Tuesdays would wake up on Wednesday morning and huddle together at breakfast comparing horrors, and so on throughout the week.  I can only remember two, and they both include my family doing horrible things.

Kitchen knives
My mother and sister have me cornered in the kitchen in the house I grew up in (near the toaster).  Whenever I try to slip out of the corner, they calmly slash at me to keep me there.  They’re smiling and laughing at my futile escape attempts.

Pool of Parts
I’m in a swimming pool that has been dyed red with the blood of freshly hacked-up body parts that have been put there (or maybe they’re swimmers who got chopped up before they could escape).  I’m attempting to get out of the pool, but my mom, sister and dad keep pushing me back in with long wooden poles.

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goodness, life, nerd

Two years!

I'm gonna need a sword (obviously)

Today is the two year anniversary of my blog!  Super exciting!  I’ve decided to commemorate this event by creating a page on this blog where I keep track of my dreams.  Should be weird.

The traditional gift for a two year anniversary is cotton, and it just so happens that I just bought myself a cotton gift: new Renaissance Faire costume!  I got this pretty green dress, plus the long, high-waisted yellow skirt underneath, which I’ve been wearing around with a dark green tank top tucked in and I look like such a lady.  Love it.

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goodness, humor, life, manfolk

Death by snuggle

This happens… almost every night I spend at Boyfriend’s place.  He’s an affectionate guy, which I love, but sleepy time is time to sleep, not time to invade Girlfriend’s space until she’s so annoyed that she has to get up and go to another bed in the house to sleep.  Most of the time I just grumble and give him some little nudges and push him back over to his side of the bed, which he takes good-naturedly, and if he’s awake enough, I hear a few muffled, “sowwy, sowwy gurlfwend, sowwy.”  It’s pretty cute, when it’s not infuriating.

truth

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goodness, humor

A new goal for genetic engineering

Teacher Roommate and I were sitting in the living room watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix when she burst out laughing, and could not stop.  She turned her laptop around and showed me the below image she found on Pinterest under the category “how to humiliate your pets.”  I doubt this image will ever fail to improve my day.

bwahahaha so cute omg adorable

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goodness, life, martial arts, school, work

A quit and a launch

i'm flying!!

I had a big day.

I bought my ticket to Dublin, Ireland!  So exciting!  I’m leaving May 31st, coming back June 13th.  I’ll have to head straight to work the next day (no recuperation time), but it doesn’t matter!  I’m going to spend some time in Ireland, see Edinburgh, visit a friend in Scotland who I met in Romania, and maybe visit another friend I made in Romania (who is a native of Arad, Romania, and lives in London now, and works as a freelance translator).  Who knows, maybe I’ll take the chunnel to France, and visit anyplace at all, because I have two weeks to bum around Europe.  It kinda depends on whether Diminutive Roommate and come along or not.  Either way, I’m going abroad for two weeks!  It’ll be my first vacation since London with my family, more than three years ago.

thanks fer sneezin' on meh!

After I bought the ticket, I put in my letter of resignation to Karate Job.  My last day there will be May 18th, giving me time to go to Sister’s law school graduation and cover for my coworker at Office Job who could definitely use a day off.  I’ll miss the kids, that’s for sure.  They’re so funny.  I’ll miss getting their drawings, and hearing all the weird nonsense that goes on in their heads.

The other day one of the kids wouldn’t stop clearing his throat.  When I asked him what was wrong, he said, “There’s a frog in my throat!”  I said, “What’s his name?”  The boy thought for a second, then said, “Coffee.”  I asked him why, and he said, “Because he makes me cough!”  Naturally.  That’s the stuff I’ll miss.  My bosses were nice enough, and pretty straight forward kinda people.  I mean, they all have their own eccentricities (anal-retentiveness, hyper-controlling, obliviousness to the plight of the sensei’s, etc.), but I’m beyond complaining about it today.  I’m leaving soon, and after that I’m going to spend two weeks in Europe, and after that I start grad school.  I have nothing to complain about today.

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goodness, life, manfolk

Disneyland!

I was so scared of her and her crow

Boyfriend and I went to Disneyland last week for our 4-year anniversary.  It was totally exhausting but super fun.  He had never been on the teacups!  I got video of him turning the wheel and getting dizzy.  I got to sit in the driver’s seat at the Indiana Jones ride (which broke down on us the first time).  The Haunted Mansion broke down on us, too; there was a hitch-hiking ghost sitting right between us on the way out.  We ate a turkey leg and a pineapple soft-serve ice cream and gumbo and a churro, walked through the princess castle, rode Pirates twice, shot lasers on the Buzz Lightyear ride (I got a way higher score than Boyfriend!), and saw no fewer than 34 little girls dressed up as princesses.

Boyfriend and I have discussed how Sleeping Beauty is probably our favorite of the old Disney cartoons.  The thorns, the green flames, the sparkly sword, the giant black dragon!  It’s just the best.

Mom asked if he and I had a “big talk” since we’ve been together so long.  I said, “No.  Our plan remains the same: Stay together as long as we’re happy.”  She didn’t seem satisfied, but Sister got a text from some boy she’s smitten about and distracted us by grinning stupidly 🙂

Boyfriend has been really busy with work recently.  He did a 9-day shoot in K-town, then we did Disneyland, then he left for San Francisco for a few days.  He got back last night, and left again this morning for a shoot someplace else for a few days.  I’m not super jazzed about it.  We slept apart last night.  I can’t get all attached if he’s just going to leave again.

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