Moon Dog's Musings

Saturday, May 31, 2003:

Before I go to bed on this uneventful Friday night, I wanted to say a few things. First off, I wanted to thank my sisters for responding to my last post. What some of you said meant a lot to me, and I really appreciate it.

Second of all, an amusing story that happened to me on Tuesday morning that I didn't feel fit into my election post:
Because Tuesday was the morning after elections and I was feeling kind of down about that, and also because I was mad at my phonology professor for e-mailing me and telling me my paper topic was no good, and also because the weather was nice (I have springitus!), I just totally did not feel like going to class. It had nothing to do with wanting to sleep in, I was already awake, I just didn't want to get out of my pjs. So I talked to my best friend online for a half hour before I decided to get my lazy butt up and head off to class. I decided to wear an extremely un-me-like outfit-showing a lot more skin than I normally do-but I figured, hey, it was FINALLY spring and I have a hot body so why not (please somebody hit me with a dose of modesty). By the time I left my room, it was ten o'clock (which is when my class starts). Oh, well, I was late, I'd walk a bit fast, but who cared in the long run?
Normally I call my mom on my walk to class in the morning, but I decided not to because then I'd get a lecture about how I shouldn't be late for class blah blah blah. I walk to north campus along Charles E Young Drive, because generally it's less crowded than Bruin Walk, and plus it's a shortcut. It was especially uncrowded on Tuesday because everybody's already in class by ten o'clock. There was, however, a guy walking nearby me. And, surprisingly, he started talking to me. The first thing he said was, "Are you by any chance on your way to management?"
This is how my train of thought went: This guy must be in my Management 1B class, and he must recognize me from lecture. However, he must not attend discussion very often (it's not mandatory), and therefore he doesn't know that I'm not in his discussion, and there must be a discussion at ten on Tuesdays that he was walking to.
I said, "Nope, I'm going to linguistics." And he mutters, "Useless." Odd way to reply, but I kind of brushed it off, because I had almost gotten used to that reaction in my couple months as a ling major.
We continued to talk on the walk down to hill. I found out that his name was Adam, he's a third-year, and he hasn't been to a single discussion all quarter. I told him that I, too, had missed many of my management discussions, because it was at the end of my long Tuesdays and by that time I just wanted to go home. Adam also rarely attends lecture, and this wasn't his first quarter taking management. In fact, he had started out as a Bus-Econ major and had gotten through most of a quarter with a decent grade in management, but when he heard that if you didn't get a really stellar grade you were screwed, he purposely didn't do well on the final so that he could retake the class later and replace it with a better grade. However, later he decided to switch his major to philosophy, but he wants to erase the bad management grade off his record. But he explained that it was really hard to get motivated to attend a class you've already taken, and he failed it a second time. This was his third time around, and he still wasn't doing that well. In fact, he almost didn't get out of bed that morning because he had been up late the night before…drinking. At this point, I'm thinking, are you just TRYING to turn me off? Yes, I really would be interested in a guy who has to retake a class three times out of pure laziness. Well, I think, maybe he's not interested in me, and I'm getting ahead of myself, and he just started talking to me because he recognized me from class, not because he thought I was cute.
But as we approached Anderson (the business school) I asked him where his class was. He said, "In here. Korn." That confused me, because Korn is where lectures are held, not discussions. And 1B lectures are not held at ten on Tuesday. Then it dawns on me. "Are you in 1A?" I ask. And he says, "Yes," as if it should have been obvious all along. Then we wish each other a good day, and I walk the rest of the way to class thinking:
1. Why did he start talking to me in the first place, and ask me his opening question, if he didn't know that I was taking management that quarter?
2. Why did he tell me about how he had failed the class so many times? Did he think because I happened to be running late for my class that one day that I was a slacker? Ha, Adam, if you only knew the extent of my unslackerness…
3. Why did he say "Useless" when I told him I was going to linguistics class? It's not as if philosophy is any more useful.
Conclusion: This is the second time this year that a random guy has struck up a conversation with me on Charles E Young on a day that I've felt really confident about my appearance and haven't been on my cell phone, which might mean that the walk to class is a good place to pick up guys, even if they might be a little odd. However, dressing less conservatively, and running late for class, might make people assume things about me that aren't true at all.
Enough soul-searching tonight; I'm going to bed.

moon // 12:29 AM

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Tuesday, May 27, 2003:

Two weeks and a day and I will be done with my second year of college. I can make it, I WILL make it, even though it won't always be fun.

Last night was elections for our chapter of Tau Beta Sigma. It took about five hours to elect the eleven offices. I'm still not quite sure I understand why we do the election process the way we do, but it works so whatever. It just takes FOREVER! I ran for parliamentarian, one of the lower offices, but I lost. From what I understand, it was a very close race, though, and although I was a little upset last night, I'm over it by now (I think). I am not, at least, scarred for life.

However, I think some of my sisters took there loss (or in some cases, losses) a little bit harder than I did. And I'm worried that it might take them a little while to recover and to forget what happened last night. HEY EVERYBODY WHO LOST YESTERDAY! YOU DID NOT LOSE BECAUSE YOU WERE A BAD PERSON OR AN UNWORTHY CANDIDATE. YOU LOST BECAUSE THERE COULD ONLY BE ONE WINNER. And the fact is, there aren't enough offices to utilize all the wonderful, enthusiastic personalities our chapter encompasses. For several of the offices, I wanted to elect all of the candidates. There were frequent cries of "Can we have two winners for this one?"
An officer of any club must be somebody the chapter believes will get the work done. An officer is a leader. An officer must have a positive attitude. Officers must be creative but also must be willing to follow the pre-determined rules of the chapter. Think about what it says about us as a chapter. There are eleven offices. And there were WAY more than eleven girls who were qualified to hold an office, way more than eleven girls who have each and every one of the qualities listed above. Next year, I hope to give somebody else the opportunity to utilize their skills (read: just because you didn't get an office this year doesn't mean you won't get one next year).

I love my sisters; they have become my family away from home. And I hate when I see any one of them hurting. Know that we all love you and will continue to love you, no matter what the results of stupid elections are.

This is one of those times I wish Blogger had a comment section. Please, if you read this and agree (or disagree) or have something to add, e-mail or IM me, and if you'd like, give me permission to post it in a future entry.

And to all of those who did get an office, congratulations! I know you will do a fantastic job serving our chapter. :-)

moon // 4:24 PM

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Thursday, May 22, 2003:

One of my TBS sisters won a car (she deserved it after putting up with the long list of raffle tickets for over an hour), and our chapter's mascot is safe after two months of being stuck with our KKY brothers, AND it's the beginning of a four day weekend, since I'm ditching Friday's PIC lecture. Add that to the fact that I found out I got an A on my accounting midterm, and I'm a pretty happy camper!
moon // 11:12 PM

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COMPUTERS ARE STUPID! My Internet Explorer isn't working (I'm using netscape right now), "my computer" won't open, Kazaa keeps shutting itself down, and the post I started writing just got deleted. I'd say more except my post would probably be deleted again if I don't post this soon.

Ruben won American Idol by 1300 votes (out of 24 million). So for all practical purposes, it was a tie. No wonder. The phone lines for both him and Clay were busy for three straight hours. I've never hit redial so many times in my life.

OK...posting this before my computer explodes...

1 month until book 5!
moon // 12:18 AM

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Wednesday, May 14, 2003:

I better put this down before I forget all the little details that made yesterday so awesome.

Phonology class was boring, but what else is new? But it was from there to my accounting professor's office hours, which I was ditching my PIC discussion to go to, since I have an accounting midterm tomorrow. After asking Prof Ravetch my questions, he says he has a favor to ask of me: to pretend, during the midterm review session of the lecture, that I don't understand bonds. He didn't explain why he wanted me to do this, but I stupidly did anyways.
So during lecture, he points to me like rehearsed and says, "You have a question?" And I said, "Yes, I'm still lost on bonds." And so he recites this lame poem he's been telling us all quarter, "Who would buy this bond from me, the interest rate is too low you see." And then I was supposed to say, "I still don't understand." From there, I didn't know what was going to happen.
He says, "It's funny you should ask that. Because last night, I wrote a song about bonds." He takes out a stereo from behind the overhead, and out comes some reggae music. He's about to start singing when he stops dancing and says, "No, no, I can't do it. It's just not the right mood." At which point, somebody planted backstage dimmed all of the lights (we are in a big lecture hall for this class). So then he starts up the music again and sees his bond song, with the poem as the chorus. I had been warned that Professor Ravetch likes to sing to his classes, but this was the second quarter I had taken him and I had been spared up until now. And there's more. After the bond song, he wasn't done. He got out his guitar and sang us a random song he had written years and years ago, called "No Accounting for Taste," which was half about how he couldn't get a girl and half about him not wanting to become an accountant because the work took too long. Soooooooo goofy. Some people probably thought it was overly lame, but I thought it was an amusing diversion, and better than my boring phonology lectures anyday.

It was especially funny, that after Professor Ravetch's singing act, he commented about Paula and Simon not being there to judge him. Which brings me to the second part of my day. AMERICAN IDOL!
We got to bypass the people standing in line to get tickets (HAHA!) and got into the studio about an hour before they started filming. We were in the front section, but off on one side. Not the best seats in the house, we thought, but we didn't care as long as we were in there. And as long as we got to sit together (Amanda went "whoring" for tickets, since the seat numbers they had given us were split up, we eventually convinced somebody to switch tickets with us so that the four of us could be together). I had my sign for Clay that said UCLAY (The UCLA and CLAY were in different colors that overlapped), Amanda had a sign that said "LOCKEd on Kimberly" and Janom had a sign for Ruben that said that her area code loved 205. She also made a sign that said "Ryan Seacrest is MY American Idol." Brittany didn't have a sign, but she helped us hold ours up.
It wasn't until the show was about to start that we realized our seats weren't bad after all. You see, they were right by the special celebrity door to backstage. So everybody walked by us and/or shook our hands (I shook Paula Abdul's hand--she is SO tiny! They had always teased her about being short, but I had no idea she was THAT small). All of the finalists sang beautifully, but Clay messed up on his first song. Reason? They switched the lyrics around on that song the afternoon before the show. Of course they neglected to tell America this; they just mentioned it to the audience during commercial. GRRRR. If he gets voted off this week I will be SO angry. Not that I can choose between the finalists--they're all really good--but I just like Clay. I want him to be in the final two at least. After the show, Ryan Seacrest walked by us on his way out, we shouted at him and he came over and signed our tickets! Amanda said, "My friend Janom wants to have 20,000 of your babies!" Janom, of course, was horrified (even though it was true). Ryan said, "20,000? Do you really want that many?" LOL!
Outside of the studio, while Janom was getting the autograph of Gabrielle Union (of Bring it On fame), Amanda found a headset lying around. She put it on, and, looking all official, walked back into the studio. It was a full two minutes before anybody caught her! No points for security at CBS!
Lastly, as we were leaving the parking lot, we happened to glance over and see that sitting in the car next to us was Kimberly Locke, one of the finalists! We rolled down our windows and were talking to her for a couple minutes. She was really nice, but the security guard wouldn't let us get out of the car to get her autograph (see? no points for security).

Other notes about the evening:
Simon is nicer off camera than he is on camera. He was actually smiling and joking a lot, all though he did tell the little kids that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. :-(
When we first arrived, they sent us to stand in the wrong line. If we hadn't asked somebody else, we could have been standing there waiting for hours again!
Vanessa, the first finalist to get kicked off, was there, too, and she was really sweet.
I love Clay. He's just as adorable in person as he is on TV.

Afterwards, we picked up Tiffany and went to the Cheesecake Factory. I had a very expensive but very good salad and a piece of chocolate peanut butter cookie dough cheesecake. Yum.

So that was my yesterday. I needed a good day after Monday's miserable midterm!
moon // 2:18 PM

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Monday, May 12, 2003:

My head hurts. I just took the second PIC midterm, which I had studied pretty decently for, and considering I had done so well on the first, I wasn't too worried about it. But the stupid test kicked my butt. I knew how to do some of the stuff on there...but not all. And I don't know why I didn't know how to do it. Some of it just flat out wasn't taught. Some of it was taught but in a nonchalant "you don't really need to know this" manner. Some of it just might have been my brain freezing. I want to feel bad, like it's my fault for not studying more, but in truth I know that it has nothing to do with my study skills. It has to do with stupid professors who write stupid exams. I HATE walking out of a test thinking, "Well, at least I got partial credit on most of them...". I want to walk out of a test thinking, "That was a little bit challenging, but I know that I got most of the problems EXACTLY right, and maybe I made a couple mistakes and was a little unsure on a few of them, but I made good guesses." This PIC exam just made me completely question how I'm going to do in the class overall, how much work I'm going to have to invest in doing on the final, and my decision to switch back to being a math major. It just reminds me that this is what the tests in the math department feel like: testing you on stuff that you didn't think you were supposed to know. It makes me want to curl up in a ball and never take another test again. UGH! I have such a headache, and they're doing construction outside (UCLA=Under Construction, Like, Always), which doesn't help the cause. I want to just sit around and do nothing--destress--but that's not even an option because I have an accounting midterm on thursday. Since my midterm confidence has already been shaken for the week, I'm now REALLY worried about it. And I need to work out and go to two meetings before the night is over.
Sorry I'm being so whiny today. In reality, I know that I probably still pulled off a decent grade on the PIC midterm, once the curve is considered. I also know that I'll get enough studying done and be reasonably prepared for Thursday's midterm. I always have been able to overcome stupid tests and grades, and part of me believes that I always will. But I will admit that a lot of my academic self-esteem has disappeared this year.
Wait! I get it! As soon as I get self-esteem for other areas of my life, my academic self-esteem goes out the window. I guess there's only so much esteem one person can have for herself.
moon // 2:10 PM

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Saturday, May 10, 2003:

Ever since the festival of books, I've been thinking that I really should get around to writing more of the novel I'm currently working on, since I've been on the same chapter ever since winter break. When in the middle of a first draft, I don't think it's necessarily a positive thing to take a long break from writing, especially if you were on a roll. Now I've gotten off the roll and I can't get back on track. So in the past couple of weeks, I've decided to completely (well, not completely, but partially) revamp chunks of what I've written so far, rearrange a couple of chapters, and proceed to finish the first draft with the new changes in mind. My thoughts have been running wild this week with ideas of how to complete the chapter I've been stuck on for ages, but finding the time to write is impossible during the school year, since I hate writing my novels with other people in the room (I don't want to have to kick out my roommate), and plus it takes me several hours to write a chapter (and I like getting chapters, or at least important scenes, done in one sitting). But luckily this weekend my roommate's gone, and I don't have a significant amount of homework to do (I have a midterm this Monday, but I can study tomorrow). I was planning to write this afternoon, but I was so tired from the walk that I didn't want to risk writing a chapter half-asleep. So I drank two cups of coffee at dinner so I would be ready to write tonight.
Here I am, back in my room, and I was ready to get cracking, but my wonderful next door neighbors (who are generally better than last year's next door neighbors) have decided that this would be a great night to crank up the music. Thankfully, they turned it down a couple of minutes ago, but for a while there i thought my ears were going to explode.
While I'm updating, I should talk a little bit about the run/walk. Thank you to those who sponsored me! I had lots of fun, although my mom and I proved again what a great team we make by 1) miscommunication about my registration forms, 2) missing our freeway exit, and 3) turning the wrong way to get parking. It was a bit stressful, but eventually we found the rest of the TBS team (almost two hours after everybody else had arrived). At least I had had five or six hours of sleep, unlike Marina, Becky, Zai, Katie, and Nicole, who stayed up the ENTIRE night and then walked 3.2 miles in the morning. Sparkles to them. Anyways, 60000 people participated in the run/stand...i mean the run/walk.
Oh, and I'm going to say the unspeakable...the walk was at the collesium, right by the U$C campus. And to my surprise, I didn't get bad vibes at all while we were walking through the campus from the parking lot. Not that I'm ever considering giving up my Bruin spirit (like true band geeks, we sang Sons of Westwood as we walked through the collesium tunnel), and of course, Trojans still SUC, but just a thought that it's true what they say: the neighborhood is ghetto, but the campus is not.
OK, since my room is now semi-calm, at least the walls are no longer vibrating, I'm going to take advantage of the alone time and attempt to work on my novel. Wish me luck.
moon // 9:31 PM

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Friday, May 09, 2003:

OK, I woke up early this morning so that I could go work out before class. Here it is a half an hour later and I haven't even gotten around to checking my e-mail. I have spent the entire morning wasting time, reading people's Xangas. Makes me feel like I should get a Xanga. But I don't really want to give up my blog, just because I've had it for over a year. However, there are some things that are better than Xanga...the counter and comments for one. I would actually know that people are reading what I'm saying! Tomorrow, after the revlon run walk, I'm going to put the link to the blog back up on my profile (It hasn't been up since Easter), and then maybe people will start reading it. Or maybe I'll get a Xanga, put the link to this blog on it, joint the TBS/KKPsi ring, and cross my fingers that people will bother reading about little old me. Perhaps i should come up with some more interesting posts rather than just posting when I'm bored. OR MAYBE I SHOULD GO WORK OUT THIS MORNING LIKE I PLANNED! OK, time to check my e-mail, get dressed, and then go up to Reiber, back by eleven so that I can change, eat, and go to class, where hopefully I will not be overly tempted by crossword puzzles!
moon // 9:18 AM

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Saturday, May 03, 2003:

Yeah, so it rained last night. Just a little bit. No, wait, it rained a lot. For at least four hours. But we stuck it out in the cold and the wet, wearing our UCLA ponchos, just to support our brothers and sisters who were part of the last group to perform at Spring Sing. They call themselves Blomp? in honor of the fact that they do things that Stomp (musicians with trashcans/brooms) and Blast! (a stage marching band, of sorts) do. They were so awesome, and it was worth staying out in the rain to see them! My poncho kept me protected, for the most part. But I was shaking when I got indoors.

Spring Sing ticket with SAA discount: $8.
A couple of pieces of pizza while standing in line: $3.
UCLA Poncho: $2.
Diddy Reese cookie: $.35.
Bonding with my sisters and brothers in the rain for four hours: priceless.

I saw XMen2 tonight, and I think it was worth the seven-fifty I paid. Elijah Wood was seeing it at the same time in the same theater we were; I didn't see him because I got there late, but my suitemate got his autograph. Cool, huh?
moon // 11:26 PM

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Friday, May 02, 2003:

Yay for May. Next month, school is out. Next month, the fifth Harry Potter book is released (finally!). Tonight is Spring Sing, an annual music competition held here at school. Since I hang out with a bunch of music freaks, we're going to stand in kine rediculously early...I think people are holding places for TBS and KKPsi right now...and it doesn't even start until eight. Yes, we're crazy, especially since it's supposed to rain tonight.
So I've decided that I'm completely obsessed with American Idol. Clay's my favorite, and I'm praying he doesn't get voted off next week because I really want to see him in person.
Not much interesting going on right now, I guess, except that the search for an apartment has begun now that I've secured roommates. Even school is pretty low key until seventh week. Yesterday I checked out some ling books for my phonology paper (i'm going to write about how i butcher spanish). They were on the fifth floor of Charles E Young Library, which, I swear, has got to be the quietest place in the universe. My boots echoed so loudly I thought they were going to throw me out. You could just hide up there and nobody would ever be able to find you. (I almost got lost up there at closing time one day last year.)
Whoa...I just looked back at past entries and found out that March 12 was 100 days until HP comes out...and now there's only 49 days left...March 12 didn't seem so long ago...the book'll be here in no time! Wheeeeeee! ***spins in circles***
As you can see by now, I'm just typing to kill time. I don't do this enough. I don't know if anybody else reads this stuff (well, nobody will except Kamille if I don't have it up in my profile) but I enjoy reading my own past posts just to see where I was a month ago, a year ago, etc.
You know what else I need to do more? Write. I have realized that my current novel isn't going in the direction I wanted it to, so that means I'm going to have to do some major rewrites. More things to do this summer.
I think I'll do some rewriting right now while I'm thinking about it, and then I'll go join my friends in line for Spring Sing. PLEASE NO RAIN!
moon // 2:42 PM

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