Bloodstains On Your Teeth

a good thing: shameless flirting.

currently: happy
likes: prospects
taste: mu shu
missing: a part of my face

For those of you that don't know, I have a job on campus working with international grad students to help them with their English and help them understand American culture better. I have one special partner this semester. Here's an account from tonight's meeting:

Stanley went to a conference for theoretical computer science this past weekend in Atlanta. He was telling me about his travel experience which quickly lead to a discussion on airports. From there a discussion of the cities that he has visited and a comparison of different parts of the US. He mentioned that he thought that the West coast was much more multicultural than the East. When he was in LA he saw a sizable representation of many ethnic groups: Black, white, latino, asian. And then he told me his theory about Latinos which basically boiled down to thisWhen the Spanish/Portuguese came over to the Americas they brought slaves from Africa and the white Europeans had interracial relations with the slaves and that's how Latinos became brown.

 

 

Yup. Also, on our first meeting he told me that I was not Indian because I didn't look Mongoloid. According to Stanley (who's Asian by the by) Native Americans had come over from Asia via the Iberian peninsula as ancestors of the Mongolians. So, in order to be Native, you have to have Mongoloid features. Black hair, more Asian looking eyes, darker complexion. My hair is too light, I have an Aryan nose and I'm too pale (According to him, my only redeeming feature was my eyes which are "kind of" mongoloid) so I'm not Indian. Oh and since American Indians are traced back to Mongolians, his experience is that he gets along better, as an Asian, with Indians.  OOOOOk.

As much as I tried to explain that identification with a certain cultural group does not depend on fitting a phenotype, yadda yadda yadda etc, he would not understand or even consider what I was saying as a possibility. This is the first time that I've had a serious cultural misunderstanding with one of my language partners and it's very frustrating.

Today a nice young man opened the door for me. He wasn't even entering the building. That left a smile on my face longer than the usual thank-you smile would require.

Mondays usually aren't horrible days to begin with because I have my riding lessons. Today Willy was exceptionally agreeable and kept the biting/kicking to a minimum as I took off his tack and cleaned him off. Oh and I started to canter and didn't fall off the horse. Always a bonus. hehe

I went to Tops to get some Halloween snacks for my ESL class tonight. I had a slightly awkward but nice cashier. I was buying candy corn in bulk and she couldn't find the price code and asked me how much I'd like to pay for the bag. I let her decide and she gave me a sizable bag of candy for a buck. +

My students didn't eat all of the stuff that I brought them so that means leftover candies, cookies and apple cider for me.

And to top it all off, it was a good hair day for me.

Thanks door man, Tops girl, Willy and students for giving me a good day.

I'm overextended and thinning out. So much work and stress is pushing more toward a pessimistic/cynical mel.

I'm tired.

Some days I miss my dad. Some days I think about him a lot.

Some days, most days, I don't think about him at all. It makes me sad and makes me think that I'm forgetting him. I don't cry about him. ..I don't cry about hardly anything. But I feel like he deserves my tears.

Today was one of those days that I missed him a lot.

I'm taking equitation this semester. My horse's name is Willy. I can't wait to see him again!

This is as close as I will ever get to my childhood dream of getting a pony for my birthday.

I just ran a 5k for the first time in many years. Even though I'm sick, I feel great :D

I wish I were a better conversationalist. Yesterday I drove up to Toronto with a coworker to see Coldplay. I filled less than 10% of the 3.5 hour drive (damn you Canadian traffic!) with my chatter. She covered about 50% and the rest was silence. Usually I don't mind sitting without talking but I guess during this drive I was feeling a little bit of performance anxiety because I couldn't think of things to say to fill the time. She took my ineptitude gracefully. Thank goodness.

Right now I'd like a tall-dark-and-handsome to sweep me off my feet and sing me a love song. Oh Chris Martin, how you put me in these moods. hehehe

*singing, dancing and daydreaming ensues*

on my summer reading list?

I'm finally done with a midterm that has consumed by soul these past 12 hours. I'm sick and tired and sore and glad it's over.

I got hooked up with a free ticket to Girl Talk last night. I should have been working but it was a great time. I danced my pants off and didn't care who was looking. Now my body's screaming at me saying "what the hell were you thinking mel? you're not fit enough to physically exert yourself like that". ok body, i submit.

I saw my little sister in the musical this weekend. Being part of the production was so good for Robin. She was so happy to be up there and performing for everyone

I like it when you're driving on a sunny day with bare branches surrounding you. Passing through the broken sunlight makes me feel like I'm in a movie reel that's slowed down just a little. It was so beautiful yesterday. ...too bad we're gonna get half a foot of snow this week :/

Hm. I don't transition well in my writing.

To boots and snowsuits!

3.14.09
I feel old, like the trees.

I like waking up early and going outside. This morning when I was walking across campus at just before 8, I felt ownership of the space around me. It was quiet and still. I didn't mind the gloomy weather that much. That's kind of how a morning should feel: wet, fresh and hopeful.

I just asked for 3 letters of recommendation for a scholarship at the beginning of last month. Cornell endorsed my application, so it's going off to the national level of competition. I'm not super proud of the essays I had written, but I'm hoping that since they're aching for Native applicants that'll carry me through the weaker parts of my application. Might as well live up being a minority, on paper at least. But now I have to apply for a summer program for my research fellowship. And I have to ask for another 3 letters of recommendation. It's awkward enough asking the first time and the second time around isn't going to be any more fun. hrm.

Exams this week. I'm a little tired.

I can't wait for Spring break. I'm coming home on Saturday. Time for fun.

I just had the most bizarre experience.--but let's start a little earlier than that. recently i've been taking extended naps in the evening, which destroys my 10:30 granny bed time and prime homework productivity time.  it's been happening because i get nice and cozy on the couch or in my bed and decide to read something super dry, which is a recipie for disaster. so, this evening when i headed off into nap-land i was going against all of my beliefs when it comes to sleeping: with jeans on, with the lights on, with make up on, and semi-sitting on the living room couch. I must be really tired because I get deep enough into sleep to have very vivid dreams, but I can still hear what's going on around me and wake up if i want to. anyway, today i was dreaming that i was playing this card game with justine in which you have to pick 3 things on the card that don't belong there. there are 10 small pictures with labels of what they are on each card. but in dreams you can't read or see things in close detail (really! try reading a sign in your next dream) and i was struggling to see what was on the cards and make my decisions about the oddballs. the dream justine could read the cards clearly and was getting impatient with my lack of literacy. but i was looking really hard and trying with all of my might.  the only analogous situation that i can think of to explain how i was feeling in my dream is this: someone that's drunk thinks something that is actually quite stupid is roll-on-the-floor hilarious but to anyone who is straight, this is just retarded and annoying. the sobers just want to punch the drunks. this was situation in my dream. I was hysterical with laughter in my dream and justine was fed up with it. she left the game, but i was doubled over with fits of laughter.  here comes the weird part: because the dream laughing was so intense, it seeped into reality. i started laughing really hard but i was only semi-conscious and not completely in control of my body. this may have been quasi-sleep paralysis. so i broke out into a grin and my breathing became irregular. but since my eyes weren't open and didn't express the same emotion and my vocalizations weren't discernable from plain gasps, it looked like i was waking up and crying. this is what justine saw, (the real justine) because she happened to be in the living room doing work. so, as i woke up more and more over the next 20 seconds, my body finally started conveying that i was actually laughing and i went into this manic laughter that i'm sure must have scared my roommate. this has never happened to me before and was the most ridiculous/weird way to wake up ever. has this ever happened to anyone else? so i was laughing like crazy and , for some weird just-waking reason, i thought this situation was even more funny because the present situation had mirrored my dream: i thought something was hilarious and justine had no fucking clue what it was annoyed/weirded out by abrupt cackling return to consciousness. anyway, i was laughing for 15 minutes solid. weird.

sorry for that long-winded explanation of a situation that is probabaly not interesting to anyone but me....but hey, isn't that what lj's all about? hehe.

last week i had to take my car in because my brakes were all squeaky. $400 down the drain. aw well, at least i'll be safe driving now. but because of this i couldn't go home and watch the bandits game with everyone. it would have been a good time. but i had fun here anyway. justine's birthday was yesterday but we decided to celebrate over the weekend. she's never been sloppy drunk, so i felt that it was my responsibility as her friend, for her 21st birthday to get her there. it was a fun night ending with her over a garbage can and followed the next day by some glorious hangovers. i'm glad that i could give her that experience.

it's 5 weeks into the semester and i have yet to make any significant changes to my research proposal that was due at the beginning of the semester. my course load isn't really that bad, which means that i've had no excuse not to get this done. c'mon mel, get your ass into gear.

mmm.. ok. done.

I just had to share this: I was eating lunch in the statler at Mac's, minding my own business. behind me there were a group of girls that i couldn't see but heard quite clearly. Then one of their other friends came to chat with them. The voice that i heard was exactly like that of Henrietta Pussycat from Mister Roger's Neighborhood:



"How unfortunate for this girl", I thought. After eating and reading the newspaper, I made sure to turn around to get a look at the the owner of the henrietta-pussycat-voice. Poor thing. It was a guy. I laughed out loud right at the group, picked up my leftovers, and walked away.

that was better than a candybar for dessert.

stars in ithaca on the 6th. wanna come?

lazertron. friday, january 16th. 9pm. come. it'll be fun.

I have 1.5 weeks left and I want to fill my time with fun things. i.e. : lazertron, ice skating, sledding/tubing, skiing, riding the bucking buffalo downtown. Let's do something fun, friends.

On a not as upbeat note: I have to write this proposal today and send it in to my advisors, who I haven't corresponded with in months. :) I'll be in the library all day. Fun times, I know.

tomorrow night at this time i will be in my house 150 miles away from my crazy roommate. thank god.

Cookie Dough is pretty much the most awesome thing ever. Love it. Mmmm...