Inauguration

Throughout life's journey, the one constant thing, in essence, is personal growth and identity formation. In terms of my life on the internet, considering the number of "blogs" I've had (I believe the count is at four), I've learned that I basically suck when it comes to maintaining one. Apparently, my trend is following the trend- I follow the internet migrations of my demographic (Friendster-Myspace-Facebook-Xanga-Livejournal) in order to keep up with the scene. For someone who seeks stability, the promiscuous relationship I've had with using and abusing "blogs" doesn't really help my cause. I'd like to see this journey into the rabbit hole illustrated through the messy trail of blog providers as a test to see who is a die-hard Frances fan. Am I that interesting? I'd like to think so. Let's see how this one works out.

First of all, I'd like to thank Liz for reviving the blogger in me. If I ever make it big, I will consider giving her royalties. She is alright.

As an inaugural post, and perhaps a sample of what I am able to provide to you potential subscribed readers, I thought it would be interesting to provide some excerpts of posts that I've written around this same time (April/Spring) over the past 5 years of my life that. If I commit to the guidelines of writing a strong essay and adapting it as a life skill, the purpose of this is to provide my readers with some insight into my life. Extrapolated to a larger scale, I intend to make the reader look introspectively on their own lives and possibly ask questions, make revisions or pursue some life changes. I also want to convince you readers to stick around! There is nothing better than a small following/cult to boost your self esteem! Just don't talk to me about this in real life.

But actually I'm doing this more for me. What is more entertaining than browsing through an electronic archive of your life in the last 5+ years? I guess there are a lot more things exciting than that but I'm just emotional. And I need writing material. If I was ever an editor of a publication, I would exploit old material for upcoming editions because 1) I'm not innovative and 2) I am also very lazy.

April 15, 2003
(I guess I was into this kind of shit)

Disorder Rating Paranoid: Low Schizoid: Low Schizotypal: Moderate Antisocial: Low Borderline: Low Histrionic: Moderate Narcissistic: Moderate Avoidant: Moderate Dependent: Moderate Obsessive-Compulsive: Low

That is interesting. Life was simple back then, regardless of teenage angst and being away from family/home. I'm pretty sure my life now encompasses all those disorders.

April 07, 2004
(On buying Tenoch, my old cat, new catnip)

I think it's some high end brand name cat nip. Anyhow, once we got home we had to take several trips back to the car because we had too much stuff. We dropped off one load (of groceries and such, silly) and went back down for another. When we came back, Tenoch opened the cat nip -after digging for it in the plastic bag- tore it open with her mouth, and got high on this Cosmic Catnip. She was literally rolling around in it. She wasn't affected by catnip before so this catnip we bought must be the good stuff. I hope we don't have to send her to kitty rehab. or a period of time in the night she seemed a lot more paranoid than she really is. She was high. Oh yeah, when I picked up the bag, I think she was drooling when she was trying to open it.

April 05, 2005
Practicing values of community that will help us in the future (or just for kicks, maybe), our math teacher puts our desks in groups of four. I have that class as my first period so when I get there, I'm usually still in a state of being half asleep. To remedy this, I tend to subconciously stretch my legs only to find out -in mid stretch- that I'm kicking my groupmate. At this point, I try to figure out a way to react: a. I pretend like it never happened, retreat to my normal position b. make eye contact, smile awkwardly and say "sorry"/witty comment and stretch my legs elsewhere or c. keep stretching, leading the groupmate to believe that I'm trying to feel him/her up or oblivious to what is happening. My choice changes with the season, and the intensity of the need to stretch.

This was posted for the sake of an update.

PS. My prom is at the top of the Space Needle.

April 02, 2006
Finishing my writing credits in one quarter sure has made me cocky. It's almost 11 and the prospect of a finished paper is beyond the horizon. I miss high school and its leniency, or at least having the option of being "excused" for missing a day. However, since it is college, I've learned to compromise sleep for MySpace and short intervals of intensive writing. These are key things for the real world, I shit you not.

And it's only natural that I can't start a paper until I've finished posting. This system that I've subconsciously assimilated to doesn't work very well, especially when the end of daylight savings time is put into effect. The worst part is that I'm aware of this problem and I really can't get started on my paper. WOW, I'm sick of posting the exact same old complaints. SO, I will move on.

My brother suggested that I move in with Vanity when she comes this summer. After careful consideration, I'm beginning to see the reality of it. Living in the dorms didn't meet my expectations/satisfaction so hopefully by moving in with Vanity, I'll be able to make up for lost time. I seem to do this [make up for lost time] with a relation to Guam, maybe this is a sign. Anyway, I'm excited for this upcoming summer because of several reasons: 1. I will be driving across the country with Eamon to New Orleans, 2. I'll be going back to Guam and 3. okay, I guess there are only two reasons for my anticipation.

In my educational experience, I've always felt self conscious about what I highlighted on a page and having other people read it. Just to be safe, I tend to highlight more than necessary and I don't feel right if nothing on a page is highlighted. But at the same time, I feel pretentious when too much on a page is highlighted. Why I think about these standards while actually highlighting is probably detrimental to the actual purpose of it and my learning so in this proclamation, I probably discovered the reason why I didn't do so well last quarter. They were read-heavy classes.

I also have to wonder why I'm writing about highlighting pages when I have a paper due in hours. Dangit.

Friday, May 04, 2007

and i think of demons hiding in the trees I always considered myself to be a good student. I would listen in class, do the homework, and do well/average on quizzes and tests. While most of the time the element of interest or material absorption wasn't there, I still managed to get by with a good grade. It's been said that college is an entirely different story. While it may be a personal goal to contradict this, I'm afraid that I am part of the statistic. It took me almost two years to come to terms with it but college is hard. It's not about reading the chapter and answering the questions at the end. There are things like "applying concepts" and "manipulating the information" now. When it comes to tests and quizzes, my ambition is to be average (at least with these prerequisite-filtering out classes). How do other people do it? Should I look into narcotics? The vision of me as a good student is now blurred. I still listen in class and do the homework but when it comes to taking quizzes and tests, I'm not exactly sure what happens. I've been continually becoming discouraged about my academic career and future. I really want to get into the Business School but I feel like my mediocre grades won't make the cut. It doesn't exactly help that there are no extracurricular activities in my name to speak of either. I'm banking on the fact that learning Chinese, going to China and doing excellent on the writing assesment will give my application some light. However, other than that, as I've mentioned, there isn't much to look at when it comes to me. Oh well. Other than the fact that I suck, I make Eamon's life suck because I am a stupid girlfriend. Let's not even talk about Gus' life. How's this for an update.

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And then it was 2008.

I was on the bus going back home the other day and I saw a little girl in a car in a parking lot sticking her body outside of the window (I feel that this description doesn't sound right). I was concerned that this little dude was going to fall out. And, probably due to the social construct of childhood innocence and purity and them having all the opportunity in the world, no one would want a child to be hurt. Yet, despite all the possibilities of hurting herself, she was confident in her balancing skills. Me, on the other hand, had to question the parents- Where the hell were they? Why would they allow her to put herself in danger? Who the hell does this kid think she is?

The beauty of having an accessible archive -similar to a time capsule- where I've pretty much documented the happenings of my life for the past 5 years is having concrete evidence of how I felt at a certain period time in my life. Growing up, we are so sure-footed about our outlook on life. Just like the child hanging outside her car and un-fazed by the prospect of falling, I had my life figured out at 16 years old: I hated Seattle, I loved spending months at a time on Guam and I was going to be an environmental health/social work major.

Lacking the experience of the realities of the world (or guarded by the protective watch of a mother), a child feels indestructible. You are okay with hanging outside the window or jumping on the couch because your body has yet to disappoint you. However, once you fall into that glass table, as I did by jumping on the couch, you immediately become more skeptical about the next time you consider jumping on the couch. Life isn't so black and white after that. Life lacks that same balancing confidence you had as a child. I feel like I've fallen into the glass table many times so much that I have to second guess everything I do.

Whatever happened to Environmental Health? While the results of my Business School application are still pending, I wonder about the possibilities of an English degree (Chinese is already given variable, at this point). I learned that, with my record of doing well in English classes -I'm currently on my 6th class- I could've qualified for the Honors program. I could've been somebody! On the other hand, while I would have this "practical, flexible and useful" Business Administration degree, I would be a mediocre student at best. I could really use some of that childhood confidence.

Well, I feel like I've lost myself trying to explain how I related this little girl in the car and how that relates to growing up. One thing that I really enjoy doing when writing blogs is not really thoroughly explaining myself. I could bullshit and say that I want to inspire you to create your own ending but why would I want to lie to myself?

I don't have any objectives or goals for you, as a reader, by reading this blog. It's really just bullshit and I'd rather not do homework. Oh well.

Let me know how I did this time around.