I was probably one of the most anti-smartphone people of all the people I knew. I couldn't stand it when my friends would constantly be on their iphones/droids/crackberries while we were at some social gathering. It's like they prefer virtual reality over reality. And the overwhelming multi--functionality of smartphones scared me (I believe I even wrote a xanga entry about it, back in the day). A phone/mp3 players/camera/internet browser/etc. etc. in one? It all just seemed so excessive.
But after a considerable amount of teasing & badgering from friends and coworkers, I finally caved in and got myself a droid. I realized I can either "get with the times" or be left behind. And sadly, this little device has already taken its crippling hold on me. Yesterday, I went to a nice little Christmas dinner gathering and I found myself opting out of conversations with people I haven't seen in a while and gravitating towards my phone. Mind you, I just got it yesterday, but still~ the old Julie would've never chose phone over friends. But there I was- isolating myself in a corner, getting all app-happy.
And the scariest part is once you get a smartphone, you've reached a point of no return. I can never go back now to the simpler times when I would have ample leisure reading time in the bus/subways or when I wasn't so "connected" to everything. Now, there is absolutely no lagtime for when anyone emails/chats/facebook messages me... it's all there with super speedy connectivity. It's all downhill from here.
12.31.2010
12.28.2010
hibernation
I'm usually a person that can survive off minimal sleep. I can stay out 'til 6am but I'll still wake up around 9am regardless. But I think all those years of sleep deprivation have caught up to me, because I have been able to sleep unhealthy amounts ever since being back in California. I think NY is like a drug that gives you a natural high, and no matter how tired you might be, once you step on the streets, you feel the adrenaline pumping in your veins. California seems to have the opposite effect: as soon as I got here, I've been feeling perpetually doozy and lethargic. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm usually the person who hates waking up late or taking naps, because it makes me feel groggy and unproductive, but right now, I have to say- it feels soooooo freaking nice.
On a related note, I think I'm the last person in the world that hasn't seen Inception. And after two insistent tries, I still am the last person in the world that hasn't seen Inception. There was so much built-up hype for this film I almost couldn't get myself to watch it. But my brother bought the blu-ray version, and it quickly became one of the less ambitious items on my Christmas break to-do list. I was really excited but as soon as I would start watching the movie, I would inconveniently start getting extreeeemely sleepy. I was trying to fight every fiber of my being to stay awake (isn't that the most painful feeling in the world?), but my eyelids just would not listen. I made it to the 15 minute mark on the first try, and on the second attempt, my brother asked, "are you really not gona fall asleep this time?" And I did, an hour through. The second time around, I actually woke up at the last scene, and I thought to myself "wow... that was a really good ending." Maybe it's because the movie is about dreaming, so it has this power to lull me to sleep. The concept is truly interesting... very Matrix-like with the alternate worlds and worlds within worlds (or dreams within dreams)... while it also reminded me of Eternal Sunshine with its messing with people's minds and subconscious. At times, it felt a little gimmicky, the dialogue felt kind of elementary, and I think they could have casted someone else for Ellen Page's character. But before I judge, maybe I should watch the whole movie from inception to completion (lame, I know).
On a related note, I think I'm the last person in the world that hasn't seen Inception. And after two insistent tries, I still am the last person in the world that hasn't seen Inception. There was so much built-up hype for this film I almost couldn't get myself to watch it. But my brother bought the blu-ray version, and it quickly became one of the less ambitious items on my Christmas break to-do list. I was really excited but as soon as I would start watching the movie, I would inconveniently start getting extreeeemely sleepy. I was trying to fight every fiber of my being to stay awake (isn't that the most painful feeling in the world?), but my eyelids just would not listen. I made it to the 15 minute mark on the first try, and on the second attempt, my brother asked, "are you really not gona fall asleep this time?" And I did, an hour through. The second time around, I actually woke up at the last scene, and I thought to myself "wow... that was a really good ending." Maybe it's because the movie is about dreaming, so it has this power to lull me to sleep. The concept is truly interesting... very Matrix-like with the alternate worlds and worlds within worlds (or dreams within dreams)... while it also reminded me of Eternal Sunshine with its messing with people's minds and subconscious. At times, it felt a little gimmicky, the dialogue felt kind of elementary, and I think they could have casted someone else for Ellen Page's character. But before I judge, maybe I should watch the whole movie from inception to completion (lame, I know).
12.16.2010
g-top
they be lookin' flyyyy high... totally diggin' their new look.
Thought it looked kinda familiar... my other favorite duo...
12.12.2010
Cali vs NY
I think it's funny how the people I meet here have this misconception that Cali people are really nice. New Yorkers know that I'm an out-of-towner right away, because they say I smile too much. My NY native friend claims that Cali guys are not as conniving and have clearer skin... she wants me to set her up with a "nice, LA boy." If you mean by nice, you mean lazy and unmotivated, why sure! Okay, I guess that was a little harsh and unfair to categorize all SoCal guys that way, but East Coasters really do have a different standard when it comes to ambition and career goals. I felt very humbled when I first came to NY, because I felt like I was constantly surrounded by people who were smarter and more successful than me. Coming from the suburbs of Cali, I definitely felt like a small fish in a big pond. In fact, I still kind of feel this way. Everyone is either embarking a prestigious career in law/medicine/finance or taking up the entrepreneurial spirit and starting their own business; this was somewhat of a rarity among the Cali folks from back home. I guess the New York perception of us is true... we're just laid-back beach bums who ride life on the slow lane.
Which reminds me, I'll be home in less than 2 more weeks. I feel like going home to nice, sunny California is like a cop-out; I am such a fair-weathered friend. Next year, I promise I'll spend the holidays in cold, moody NY.
Which also reminds me, ever since I was little I really wanted to go to Santa's Village (that's after LegoLand and Holy Land in my list of ridiculous theme parks I desperately want to go to). I wonder if the California location closed down? It was the closest thing to a real "Christmas experience" in Cali.
Thinking about it now, I'm sure it would be extremely strange and creepy.
Which reminds me, I'll be home in less than 2 more weeks. I feel like going home to nice, sunny California is like a cop-out; I am such a fair-weathered friend. Next year, I promise I'll spend the holidays in cold, moody NY.
Which also reminds me, ever since I was little I really wanted to go to Santa's Village (that's after LegoLand and Holy Land in my list of ridiculous theme parks I desperately want to go to). I wonder if the California location closed down? It was the closest thing to a real "Christmas experience" in Cali.
Thinking about it now, I'm sure it would be extremely strange and creepy.
12.05.2010
forbidden fruit
Whether it comes to a one-sided love or the toy that your brother has, you always want what you can't have. For me, I feel that way a lot about food. I always crave things that are physically impossible for me to eat at that given moment. For instance, I would crave Korean food while I'm at work. Or eggnog milkshake after Christmas season. Or girl scout cookies during non-girl-scout-cookie-season.
Ever since watching a t.v. program where one of the characters was eating a fresh, crisp apple, I really wanted to eat one the latter part of the evening. I looked in our fridge, and there was no such thing in sight (Our fridge is really sad. Meaning there is nothing edible in it.) A-ha! But I found a quince in the lower drawer... yes I actually took it from the restaurant I visited the other day (c'mon it was in a big basket on display in the front... they were asking for it). Anyway, I actually never ate a quince before in my life, but it looked close enough to an apple, so I decided to give it a go.
I knew something was a bit fishy when it took 10 minutes to cut through the fruit. I almost cut my fingers! But desperate as I was, I decided to eat it anyway. Big mistake~ it was hard (surprise, surprise) and left a nasty, dried up feeling on my tongue. Ick!
Lesson learned: No matter how desperate you are and how close this desired object is to the real thing, do not settle. Because you will realize that though it looks like an apple or smells like an apple, it ain't no apple.
12.02.2010
From jeanlee,
Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!
1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible (hopefully some day...)
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger-> overrated
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald -> I may need to re-read this to understand why it's so great.
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan-> really want to read this.
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac -> as much as I tried, I could never get through this.
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
i miss reading for pleasure.
Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!
1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible (hopefully some day...)
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger-> overrated
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald -> I may need to re-read this to understand why it's so great.
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan-> really want to read this.
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac -> as much as I tried, I could never get through this.
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
i miss reading for pleasure.
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