So, I'm not super green or anything, but I try to be environmentally conscious in small ways. When possible I buy organic, and I've attempted to cut down on my plastic waste a bit. I only use cold water when I wash my clothes. Nothing really extreme.

I also don't drive, but I don't really think of that as an effort to be environmentally friendly because my reasons for that don't have much to do with the environment. I just don't like cars.

Anyway, I found out today about green cemeteries. I absolutely love the idea of it. It's always seemed weird to me that we have cemeteries where we make it as hard as possible for any actual decomposition to happen, what with embalming and these big elaborate caskets. I mean, admittedly, if you had asked me on a random day before now what I thought some very environmentally unfriendly practices were, I probably wouldn't have thought of burials, but they actually are for the majority of people. It takes a lot of water and maintenance to keep cemeteries looking so clean and er... well, green in the sense that the grass is alive.

I guess the cemetery my grandparents are buried in in Hawaii might not use as much water because it's got a different type of grass, but most of the ones I've seen (admittedly not that many, maybe three or four?) have lawns that need watering.

But yeah, with a green cemetery you're taking away the stuff that's unnatural and bad for the environment as much as possible. You can still do a casket, but it won't be those solid kinds that look like they cost over a thousand dollars and won't rot for a century. The one closest to me looks like it's Fernwood Cemetery, where you can engrave small boulders instead of having tombstones, or not even have a marker. They do GPS stuff to help find burial sites. :0

Oh yeah, and green burials can be a LOT cheaper because you're not paying for all that embalming and fancy casket and stuff.

I definitely didn't expect to get excited about the prospect of my own funeral today, haha, but this does seem pretty cool.

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By the way I finally changed it so that it's actually possible to see links in my entries without hovering over them. My code was all messed up and I had no idea for the longest time until I tried to change it just now. >.> Now active links are the fine shade of kiwi to be more visible, though they still turn maroon when you hover over them. I went with the fabulous "gray42" for visited links.

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My lips get really horribly dry sometimes. For the most part I've just been using Blistex ointment on them, because since it's thin it actually moisturizes them instead of just putting a layer of whatever on top. I was doing that and then putting other chapstick type things on top, which wasn't working very well but was the best I could do until I found something else to try.

Went to Target yesterday and ended up buying one of those eos lip balms I've seen but never tried before. They come in little round things that look like normal lip balm pots, but you don't have to use your fingers, which is nice.

Here's a not very good picture I took with my phone:


Anyway, I was super surprised, because this has been working out amazingly for me. It's possible that it's totally a coincidence and the air has just gotten less dry or something, but like, my lips aren't on the verge of cracking anymore. Definitely worth the extra dollar fifty or whatever, in my opinion.

I'm getting a horrible amount of freckles on my lips and face, which is possibly due to use of products containing petrolatum... I've read that it makes your skin more sensitive, so that if you don't use enough sun protection it will get damaged more easily. I never used to get freckles on my lips (don't remember ever having anything before college), so maybe it's related? Dunno. It's a bit hard to find lip balms without petrolatum if you're just looking in a normal store, and they tend to cost more (no surprise there). Honestly I'd rather pay a little bit more and not be plagued with freckles, even if my boyfriend thinks my freckles are cute or not very noticeable.

I have some other pictures to share...

Part of a picture from a different Ethiopian restaurant we tried. It was depicting how coffee production works in Ethiopia, I assume.


There's a cute little ice cream shop in Japantown that had one wall totally dedicated to George Takei. I got a picture of the action figure they had.

I think there was a sign somewhere else in the store that said they would display different prominent Japanese figures to honor them on that wall.

Just thought this was pretty.


Some pictures from the most recent hike I took with my Environmental Science Lab class.



One from the trail.


On Friday I went hiking with my friend Gabe for about three and a half hours at the Stevens Creek Reservoir. That place is HUGE. We got lost and had to walk along the road around the park for awhile to find our way back.

A picture of the reservoir:


There was a ton of wood washed up on the banks.


We also found what appeared to be a scrapyard.


And apparently they dump a lot of the wood from the banks there too.


I finally bought Breakfast With Abductees after having a clip from it as my text tone for three years. The movie Sven van Hees sampled in it has kind of a gross plot, but now I'm somewhat curious about it. Has anybody here seen The Last Sunset?

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I'm not really a hoarder. I do enjoy cleaning stuff out every now and then, when I get around to it.

This isn't about physical stuff, though. Just got my computer up and running again, and it messed up my iTunes so that I only had my iTunes library as it was in April of last year. I have NO idea why.

BUT, it just so happens that I still had the CopyTrans Manager program in my Downloads folder (which I never clean out), and of course I had saved the email with the activation code in it from that time my external hard drive crashed like two and a half years ago. Yayyyy.

I'm doing a backup from my iPod right now. It's kinda weird, though.

That's even worse than the normal Windows time estimates.

Now that my computer's working again, I can transfer the pictures from my phone to here. Of course, I am far too lazy to do that right now, but I'll post them in the future.

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Sometimes I feel like I'm falling when I'm going to sleep. I've read this is a common experience.

Last night I felt like I was lying strapped in to a roller coaster, facing the ground, and being pulled at by gravity. Or... maybe riding those Xtreme Skyflyer rides.

I guess that it would make more sense to describe it as being tied to the bottom of a beam, but the sense was indisputably that of being on a roller coaster.

I should mention that I hate roller coasters. Also that I've actually never been on one that gave me that kind of sensation. I did ride the Skyflyer several years ago, and it was terrifying.

But back to last night. The sensation of being extremely high up like that was horrible. I felt like gravity had been reversed, and even though I was currently pinned to my bed, I could fall at any moment. I could almost imagine plummeting down through the open air, paralyzed by fear. I'm not sure if I'm really afraid of heights so much anymore, but I can't look down from a great distance without imagining falling.

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I did end up adding onto my old story. I think Zanzibar has access to it, but as far as I'm aware nobody else from here has read it. I think... it's the longest story I've ever written, but it's actually only four pages. >.> And then I have a bit over two pages just of notes and background info. There's so much I want to cover but I have yet to decide where it will go. I am not one of those people who can write something and say "it just wrote itself!" Actually though, I haven't really ended up writing like, a paragraph or something and then deleting it... so maybe that's a good sign.

I'm just rambling now. Gonna go watch the first season of Xena with my boyfriend while he fixes my computer.

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Grr, I still can't believe I missed a day. One day! So close.

It's almost too late to back out of this college path I've set myself on. I don't know why I'm saying it like that. That sounds terrible. I guess in a way I'm just kind of afraid of how I'm going to deal with the future.

I'm looking at grad school options for Psychology right now. A man from Palo Alto University, which is a Psych grad school, came to talk in my Social Psychology class yesterday, and since my professor recommended the school I thought I would check it out.

They offer PhDs, which would take five years, and MAs, which take three years. A PhD in Clinical Psychology supposedly prepares you to be a clinical psychologist, while an MA in Counseling Psychology prepares you to be a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT). I would prefer to go for the PhD, but five more years of schooling, on top of the maybe two I'll need just to finish undergrad, is a really long time. I wouldn't be done with school until I was almost 30...

Since my brother is going to do med school, neither of us would really be done with school until about that age. I'm wondering if it would make more sense to go for the MA and try to get out into the job market earlier. I'm not sure what job prospects are like for MFTs though.

Looking at the Occupational Outlook Handbook, it looks like Clinical Psychologists make about twice as much as MFTs. That's... a pretty considerable difference. Both fields are projected to grow faster than average, though. I wonder if it would be possible to get the PhD in less than five years? I don't know if they require you to take courses in a certain order (probably) or if they would let you condense them by taking on more at once. Could I do that without killing myself? I don't know my limits. Even when I'm feeling "overwhelmed" it's usually just because I put stuff off, not because it's actually more work than I can handle.

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My computer is still broken... I'm typing this from a school laptop. My boyfriend is going to buy a new motherboard and processor and try to fix my computer on Saturday. We don't know if it's actually the motherboard and processor, though. My dad said it could also be the power supply. I don't really care what it is, I just want it to work. :\

On the other hand, without my computer working, I've been going to bed an average of two/three hours earlier. The days seem longer. Maybe it would be a good idea for me to limit my screen time...

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My writing group's prompt for our next meeting is to write a piece based on the excerpt from a random book at the coffee shop where we meet. The snippet is "the way he felt when things were beyond his control."

I have a lot of ideas for this one, but deciding which of them to go with is a bit tricky. Even though I have a strong tendency to write emotions I am familiar with (mainly variations of depression) into my pieces, I have an aversion to including things that are too close to my personal experiences. I don't want people to think I'm writing about myself (even if I am...).

Maybe I should just add on to that other piece I haven't touched in awhile. It would sort of make sense to have the character feel that way, since his life has been essentially predetermined for him by his genetics.

My computer broke last night. Hopefully it will be fixed today. My dad said the heatsink and fan on my other one were loose, which is why the processor might have burned out. I told my boyfriend about it and he said they must have come loose during transport. -Sigh-

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Listening to Cirrus by Bonobo. When I saw the music video I knew it had to be by Cyriak. He has such an awesome unique style.


This creepy forty five year old from OKC has been messaging me telling me he thinks I'm so "pretty and sweet" and that he wants to treat me "like a princess" and hopes my boyfriend knows how lucky he is.

"I just can tell you are a sweetheart, not just from your innocent profile, and purity. But your Angel like pics. I envy your BF, you are so pretty and sweet, I hope he treats you like the ***Princess*** you are."

Ewwwww. There are forty five year olds who are pretty cool and don't creep me out, but this guy does not fall into that category. What's worse is that he's supposedly not even trying to hit on me.

"yeah I know you have a BF. and I understand, but your a sweet beautiful girl. When I say treat like a princess. I guess I mean that in this case, as a sweet friend. If I want to do something for you. I hope you let me. if we get a bite to eat, I hope you let me pay, even though its just as friends. He is a lucky guy, I hope he knows just how lucky."

It weirds me out that he's inferring that I'm sweet from my profile, because honestly I designed it to be pretty sparse and not tell people much about my personality outright. My pictures also mostly obscure my face. There have been guys who have interpreted my profile as a sign that I'm bitchy, even. -Shrug-

Here are some pictures I took in a dd's Discounts, which I guess is like a Ross or a TJ Maxx but feels more downscale to me.

Look at these swaggalicious sunglasses.


Aw yeah what son.

(I'm glad my boyfriend humors me when I put silly things on him. He has very little sense of shame.)

The names of knockoff perfumes tend to crack me up.

I feel like they really weren't trying very hard with this one.

"Our impression of 212 Sexy Men"

So it must be 505 times better, right?

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I tend to zone out when I'm biking unless it's really cold and my ears hurt or something, in which case I focus on the pain and all I can think about is getting home.

Things have been pretty stable for me I guess, in the general scheme of things. Despair rarely comes knocking.

But even though my life is more or less going well, it feels weird.

I think it's just because for the longest time I've (consciously or not) considered suffering an integral part of my self identity. It's disorienting to be moving away from that. Part of me keeps expecting to lapse and be extremely depressed again, or even... hoping for that? Not because I think depression is happy fun times but just... it seemed like it made up part of my personality.

Maybe I've said this before. I think I have, in different words. I'm still discovering who I am without depression. (That's not to say it's totally gone, it's just the faintest it's ever been)

Still, I will admit I draw most of my inspiration from said suffering.

...Though the tiny details of people's lives interest me too now. That's good. I'm finding new things to be interested in. Maybe someday I'll be able to have passions again.

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