Saturday, August 05, 2006
My Californian Paradise
So I realized when I woke up this morning that this would be my last weekend in San Clemente for the next three months. I must admit that I've grown quite attached to the place upon coming here practically every weekend this summer. It pretty much embodies the aspects of California that I like. There's the perfect weather that isn't dreadfully hot like Santa Clarita, an ocean view from the backyard, smogless skies, and hiking trails to look over the whole city. And then there are the aspects of this house that I always wanted growing up like a community pool, backyard bbqs all year long, a luxurious queen size bed, centralized location where my extended family would actually visit, and dark purple walls in my room. It's like my little utopia that I'm leaving.
Funny that we haven't had this house for more than 2 years I've become much more attached to it than my house in Santa Clarita. Even though there are more childhood memories there, I feel like this house is more me. I helped pick out all of the beautiful furniture, picked out the color of my walls, bought the firepit in the backyard with my brother for our parents Christmas gift, and generally have felt like I've spent more time bonding with my parents here. No tv, no friends to go hang out with, and a slow dialup connection will do that for you.
But it's time for me to leave another suburb and venture out to the city. It's like Fievel Goes West but in the opposite direction. At least I know that my trips back to California will be to a house I love...oh, and I guess a family I love too :)
posted by Kristina |
11:12 PM
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Friday, August 04, 2006
Goodbye 433 & Westwood
Although I might be coming back for another night to finish up packing and cleaning out my apartment, bare walls and an empty closet more or less mean that I'm done with my home of the past two years. While I'm quite ready to move to a new apartment and a new city, what can I say other than it's been a good run. My apartment and Westwood in general have been good to me as my transition into independence. So thanks for these and many other memories...
From the apartment...
The crazy study table every quarter during finals week. Project Runway gatherings in our living rooms every Wednesday Night. A debate watching party with 50+ people. A swanky wine and cheese party. The pen. The giant living room everyone was envious of. A super Superbowl party. Mimosas on the sundeck. Dinner parties around our huge kitchen table. Really bad reality tv. Eeps, meeps, schoopdies, wahs, and other unintelligable noises. Surprise birthday celebrations. The most comfy couches to plop onto after a long day. Incestuous relations with M5+1. Extreme home makeover and boxes of tissues for Christina. Girl talk on the counters of the kitchen. The scandalous gumball machine.
From Westwood, it'll still hold a special place in my heart as much as I complain about it...
My first Diddy sandwich. Margarita Mondays with the Vega. First date with Alex at CPK on a lovely spring afternoon. Post-council boba runs. Spending many hours perusing Aahs never to buy anything in 4 years. Brewco Thursdays and always seeing Coco. Avoiding the LaRouchie. Farmer Market dates. RIP UDog. Sake Bomb! Evening strolls down Broxton with twinkling lights. The cheers in the streets upon beating Gonzaga. Celebrity sitings and Hollywood premiers. Glaring at the USC intruders. Many a date days. Ralphs runs procrastination. Sunshine all the time.
posted by Kristina |
10:47 PM
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Thursday, August 03, 2006
Me and My Boys
As my last days in Westwood approach, I've lined up a lot of "I'll see you later" dates. As I say goodbye to some of my closest friends at UCLA, I've realized something: most of my good friends are guys. That is not to say that I don't have amazing female friends, because I do. However, simply looking at the ratio of male to female, the edge goes to the boys.
The funny thing is I know a lot of other girls who say the same thing, that they have far more male friends than female. Not only does this rebuke "When Harry Met Sally's" theory that men and women can't be friends, it also makes me wonder why this has come to be. Is this a generational thing, is it simply amongst people I know, are there societal reasons why girls don't seem to have as many girlfriends?
Liking to psychoanalyze myself as always, I tried to figure this out for myself rather than make broad generalizations. I'm not a girly girl but I'm also far from being a tomboy, so why do I like hanging out with boys more? Here are some of my hypotheses:
-Growing up, the person I played with most was my brother. Also, there weren't really any girls my age on my street so the neighbor kids I also played with were boys.
-Early on, I had some good friends that I had falling outs with, leaving me with trust issues of the larger female population.
-One of my friends speculated that girls might be intimidated of me. I kind of think that's funny but I have been called an Alpha Female before, and alpha females like playing with the big boys and don't like competition from other girls.
-I think I have this mental block in my mind that says if I befriend girls, we have to automatically become best friends and I get apprehensive about it. Whereas with boys, we can have more casual friendships...which eventually do turn out to be the good friends.
Male or female though, thanks to all my friends who have made my experience at UCLA amazing. Even though I have a lot of acquaintances from running around UCLA, I'm not the best at keeping in touch with people. So if we've made it through this long as friends, you're probably a pretty special person.
posted by Kristina |
7:10 PM
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Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Cheaters Never Propser
*Project Runway Spoiler Alert*
Watching tonight's Project Runway, I was glad to see Keith go for cheating. While the rules are very clear, I think people's opinions on this decision are very biased on their thoughts on their perception the rulebreaker himself, Keith. A lot of people were sad to see him go because he looked like Jude Law, he made the show amusing, or they thought he was talented. However, I think I was biased the other way and was happy because he had been such a jerk to people in previous episodes (which yes, makes good tv but bad karma will come back and hit you).
What drives people to cheat? More than anything, I think it's arrogance. Throughout the show, Keith had been very full of himself and in this very episode he admitted that he tried to bend/break the rules and seemed more proud than apologetic about it. Ironic that the people who feel all superior in their skills are the ones who think that they can break the rules to give them an edge they shouldn't supposedly need. I'm sure their arrogance is some mask for insecurity, but I'm not a psychologist so I'm only speculating.
You can see this arrogance and feeling of superiority leading to poor decisions in a lot of different realms. Just look at the blatant corruption in Washington DC by the people who were most powerful. And if you look a little back in the same city, Watergate has to go down as one of the most ill-contrived scandals ever. Enron, Martha Stewart, and countless other corporate scandals are a few more examples. And how about steroid use and other forms of cheating in sports? In the end, it just doesn't seem worth it because you usually would lose so much more than you would gain. But whether it's thinking you're above the law or whether you just feel pressured to be always the best, you probably just don't think of the consequences.
I'm curious to know what I would personally think if this happened to someone I liked on the show rather than someone I had come to disdain. I'm guessing that I would feel more sympathy for them but agree that they should accept the consequences. I'm usually very Kantian in not breaking any rules because it could lead to a slipperly slope but who knows what I would actually think if they kicked Laura or Michael (my favs) off. It's hard to speculate about that possibility, because like cheating, everything is more clear and obvious in hindsight.
posted by Kristina |
9:16 PM
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Tuesday, August 01, 2006
People Professions
As I was sitting there with the dental hygienist cleaning my teeth and asking me questions about school, I realized that one of the reasons why I actually don't mind going to my dentist is because the people who are working on me always make friendly conversation and remember everything about me when I come back in 6 months later. It's like a little friendship with the perk of getting clean teeth at the end. The hygienists I have always are interested in what I'm doing and I learn about them as well, which certainly makes the teeth cleaning go faster. As we were chatting, I discovered that my hygienist, an avid Democrat, had a daughter who went to UCLA law and that she's taking law school classes online as well. When my dentist came and inspected my teeth, he gave me tips on bars to go to in DC based upon his experience at Georgetown dental school.
Even though trying to maintain a conversation with someone while you have a tube sucking water in your mouth is difficult, I appreciate being treated like a human rather than an object that they are working on. The same applies with many other professions. Nothing annoys me more than when I get the haircutter who only speaks to me when he asks how I want my hair cut, then proceeds to either cut in silence or talk to the other hairdressers. I understand that everyone might not be chatty but just a little conversation helps the time go by and that 'human touch' probably earns people a better tip and a request to see them the next time they come in.
So these are my mental notes to self: whatever field of law (or other profession) I go into, I will treat the people I work with like the people that they are. Not numbers, a name, or a paycheck. That and I need to floss more. But yay for no cavities and a clean bill of dental health.
posted by Kristina |
4:30 PM
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Monday, July 31, 2006
Random Monday Thoughts...
Even though every day is pretty much like a weekend, Mondays will always just feel like Mondays. With my brain on auto pilot, here are some random things that passed through my mind recently:
-Although I'm grateful for the cool down in California, I'm a little apprehensive about the heat wave moving East. I'm crossing my fingers that 1. there won't be as many lives lost as in CA and 2. that it will be over by the time I get there.
-Why does Puerto Rico get to compete against us when they're part of the United States? I was reminded of this during the Miss Universe pagent and I also remember when they beat us in the 2004 Olympics in basketball. It's probably not as strange as them being one of our territories.
-The LA County Registrar didn't pay me for working the polls because they mixed up my middle name and my last name. Considering that these are the people who are in charge of voter lists as well as birth, marriage, and death certificates, this concerns me greatly.
-Have you noticed how commercials, particularly fast food commercials, have become like political attack ads? Before they used to vaguely refer to their competition using their colors and whatnot but now they have full on attacks.
-I never realized that Fidel Castro had been in power as long as my mom's been alive. Him handing over power to his brother today because of medical problems is like the end of an era, though I can't say I'm sad about it or anything. He's just always been there, just like how Pope John Paul II was always there. Weird.
-I've come to really dislike those investigative news shows (Dateline, 20/20, etc) that do indepth probes into crime incidents. I don't mind if they do reoccuring crimes and give suggestions as to how people can prevent these things from happening but showcasing isolated cases, like when a doctor husband murders his pregnant wife, have no value to society. Go do a special on real world problems.
-American, the book, is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. I can't believe that I let it sit on my shelf for so long without browsing through it.
-I'm friends with Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) on facebook. I find it funny that politicians can now buy facebook accounts and that politicians are actually doing it and having an intern (I'm guessing) keep the account really updated. The things you do when you want to run for President.
-Former President Jimmy Carter and I both have aprons that say "Hail to the Chef."
-I used to really like Mel Gibson...
posted by Kristina |
8:10 PM
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Sunday, July 30, 2006
Back to School Shopping
As I went into Staples today to find my brother a laptop case, I was immediately hit by a million signs that said "Back to School Shopping." As the somewhat nerdy and obsessively organized kid that I was (or still am?), back to school shopping was my favorite type of shopping. I remember how excited I was to buy a new pencil box, trapper keeper, gluesticks, post-it notes, colored pens, and more. Those were the good old days.
Now back to school shopping is a little different. On the one hand it's fun buying bigger and better new things. This weekend I got to buy the bed and mattress for my new apartment. That's fun. Seeing the price tags on the things I need to buy for higher education is not. Tuition, $300 worth of law school books (I'm not sure which is worse, the cost of the books or the fact that I have that many books to read), apartment rent, furniture, and more. You pay more to work more, my logical reasoning skills says this doesn't make sense.
posted by Kristina |
6:29 PM
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Everything You Need to Know and Little Bit More...
My SoCalled Life
Well I have to give credit where credit should be given so major kudos to mon ami Kyle Terwillger
for coming up with the ingenious title! In case you missed it, its a play off of the TV show my So Called Life and the fact
that I live in Southern California.
Why Blog?
Where better to provide a snapshot of experiences as a young woman and
college student in one of the most unique places in the world. And where better
to rationalize the unexplainable, appreciate the goodness, and share my point of
view. This isn't my deepest secrets or a place for me to mope, it's just my
socalled life.
The Basics
Birthdate: June 7
Birthplace: Minneapolis, MN
Home: Stevenson Ranch, CA
Occupation: UCLA Student
The Academic Side
Major: Political Science,
American Politics Concentration
Minor: Public Policy
UCLA Activities
Bruin Democrats
USAC Internal Vice Pres.
Student Alumni Association
Poli Sci Research
University Catholic Center
Archives:
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