TV

OK 95% of people out there: TV is not all bad. It is GOOD for some people. Some people learn more about the world and themselves from TV than any other place. Some people are rarely happy and are able to squeeze out a few cheery moments in front of the TV. Some people have home businesses in which they pursue often tedious, repetitive tasks and watching TV is practically the only thing they can do at the same time to stay sane.

So stop talking bad about TV.

And here are shows I LOVE--
Lost: a serial that you have to watch every episode to get; enthralling, freaky.
Gilmore Girls: it's the town you secretly want live in. Watch it for the incredible dialog; you will wonder how the actors remember and recite all those lines while acting at the same time!!!
Veronica Mars: best for females who are teenagers at heart who like riveting storylines about murder and petty high-school mysteries
Las Vegas: a show about the best people living in the funnest city, and the occasional random hilarious scene, and great acting and vivid characters
Medium: the most realistic family ever portrayed. Entertaining storylines are a bonus.
Scrubs: watch this for the wittiest lines and funniest you-had-to-be-there moments EVER
America's Next Top Model: drama, drama, drama, but how many people have told me they watch it for the clothes??? WTF? Who cares?
Survivor: do you like to watch people arguing in public because it's entertaining? You'll love this.
Grey's Anatomy: their lives suck more than yours.
Oprah: um, I don't think I need to explain her greatness
Jeopardy!: fun to kick other people's butts with
Lat Night with Conan O'Brien: disgusting but simply the best
Nightline: BEST news show, on every night people, watch it!

Korben

Figure skating

Arr. I already knew who was gonna win after watching the warm-up for the last group. A total no-brainer. Arakawa is obviously the most stable skater. Sasha breaks under pressure... again. Irina wasn't looking good during warm-up either. After Sasha's skate, I thought she probably wasn't even gonna medal, and I was totally sad for her. OK then Suguri lost to her. Then Meissner. Then even Irina messed up and LOST TO COHEN. WHAT? WOW. SILVER! Who wouldn't be happy with Olympic SILVER? Oh right, Sasha Cohen. I bet she's traumatized right now that she didn't win, because that's what insanely disturbed people do. And of COURSE, Sasha has NO poker face, you know she is going to lose before she even skates. You also know when she is going to win.

Arr I wanted either an American or Irina to win, and of course I somehow find Arakawa so BORING, but then again, there's nothing wrong with a lack of facial expressions (look who's talking), but fandom is irrational, right?

I just realized, the favorited Irina winning Olympic bronze following silver, doesn't that remind you of someone??? (Michelle Kwan, for those impaired in skating stats.) Also, under the new system, Sarah Hughes wouldn't've won gold. It was a GREAT Olympic moment, when she skated perfectly, but still.

A letter I just composed to Kinko's Customer Relations

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to complain about one of your employees. On February 23, 2006, I felt that I was seriously mistreated at the store located at 2518 Green Bay Road, Evanston, IL 60201, by [asshole's name], a male employee with a European accent who looked to be in his forties.

He had trouble understanding what products I was trying to pay for (one self-service copy item, one item printed and laminated from an email file). He then could not figure out the lamination costs and therefore input a similar item into the computer that has a much lower and incorrect amount, saying that it would take forever to ask another employee how much it costs. During our entire interaction, when I tried to explain to him what I was paying for, he would offensively snap at me with snide remarks, using phrases such as “Look, I’m just trying to be nice,” and “I know how to spell your name,” and responded “Why didn’t you tell me?” when I tried to correct him on an item.

A person with this abrupt attitude and irritable personality should not be working in a service position.

However, I commend all the other employees at this location, who were exceedingly friendly and knowledgeable.

Thank you for your attention.

Me happy

Sasha Cohen kicked butt! I am happy she showed her true ablities today, unlike in most important competitions. And her outfit was so cute. I also thoroughly enjoyed Emily Hughes, and Meissner skated perfectly and pulled off the triple-triple, which was huge. Even though it was technically close, I thought the Americans performed 10 times better than anyone else, including Irina (in second) and the girl from Japan in third (forgot her name). It's because they have that whole American-girl attitude. American athetes are privileged, compared to so many Olympians from other countries. They do what they do because they are given the opportunity, and they are disturbingly driven to be the best (really, they're disturbed), and they, as Americans, say "Look at me, I'm the best!", which is something I don't feel when I'm watching the Japanese and Russians. Here's Counting Crows' version of us American girls (how can I not include myself?): "American girls all weather and noise, playing the changes for all the boys. You made me cry, you made me cry, you made me cry, you made me cry, hey miss American girl."

It's here! It's here!

Women's figure skating! Short program though (as in, not the finals). So excited! We are taping American Idol tonight so we don't miss a bit of skating!

I have to tell about my recent purchase! Last Sunday we went to the outlet mall in Aurora, which is the BEST outlet in the country, in my opinion, because it's small, so you don't have to walk by all the boring stores, and all the good stores are there: BCBG, Kate Spade, Banana Republic, Sony, Diesel... and some nice ones that I don't care much for like Miss Sixty (still expensive), Giorgio Armani, and others. Most of these brands only have a handful of outlet stores around the country. ANYWAY, after falling in love with 10 BCBG dresses that I deemed not cheap enough (I only go for ones under US$75), we proceeded to our main destination: Sony! I got a camera with 5.1 megapixels for US$150 and left ecstatic. It is originally $300 but probably is discontinued, and also it is refurbished. Yay! BTW, I think for the past 2 years, about 90% of everything I've bought has been at a discounted price. I love bargain hunting.

Grr

I like living in my own little world, but I get overly lonely, so I try to venture out but feel massive anxiety and miss living in my own little world, and the cycle goes on. This is just the way I am, I do not choose it and would never choose it. I can't help that I am Scarlett Johansson's Charlotte. I hate that I feel immense loneliness but also immense alienation when surrounded by people. (V.Li, this is why I so agree with the quote in ur previous comment.)

Research shows that keeping a journal helps just as much as seeing a shrink. If so, shrinks must not help at all.

The chronic constipation thing

I can't stop saying it. Chronic constipation. So yesterday was the event, and my job was fine and fun and everything. Except I got lost in the hotel once, which was bad. Anyway, turns out they had two booths for us four people, so I had a partner, who was soooo annoying. He kept going on and on about how he rules at volleyball and has a sweet job at Porsche this summer and how he's the beer pong champion and paper airplane master and how he's too smart to be in a fraternity. And NO I DIDN'T MAKE THIS UP, he literally used the words "champion" and "master," etc. He was moderately nice but believed himself to be very outgoing and therefore had to exhibit this belief, yet his slurred speech and faux laid-back attitude made him very disgruntled-clown-ish.

At least we got one thing straight: I can kick his butt at origami.

Other than that, the event was fun. There were some speeches/presentations by the CEO and others, and it was cool hearing them talk about their remedy for chronic constipation being an important accomplishment in human history. Just when I was thinking "can't they just take fiber?", he would explain that fiber and exercise just aren't enough for many people, and this problem greatly reduces their quality of life. Oh and then there was a magic show by some famous guy Joseph something, and he had the whole creepy sinister smile stare throughout his show, it's weird.

My glamorous life

Tomorrow I'll be going to a large event/party (about 600 people) to teach/demonstrate/make origami, along with three other origami artists. We're each going to have a booth that people will walk up to and try their hand at origami. The event is for a pharmaceutical company, and it is centered around one of their drugs for (GET THIS) chronic constipation. The whole idea is the paper starts out as a block (or "blockage"), and the folding of the paper into birds signifies movement and transformation. Just when I thought my life couldn't get any less glamorous than outsourcing die-casting parts. But I'm happy to be going; you won't believe what they're paying. It would also be nice to get some publicity for my business, but I'm not counting on it, since I'm really representing the marketing company and not my own company, so I'm not going to be passing out business cards or anything.

I'm pretty stressed about the event, but that's just because I don't know what it will be like. Other than the artists, there will be diagrams of seven very easy bird designs posted around for people to follow, which makes me wonder, will there be moments when I've got nothing to do or will people be constantly talking to me? What if everyone's just following the diagrams and I have nothing to do? Should I be folding something or should I walk around and say "is everyone doing okay here" like a waitress? I hate foreign situations. Also, I would much prefer if the artists were given free reign on what designs we could teach (the event planners don't want us to encourage anything too difficult).

I spent half an hour this morning memorizing the seven diagrams and making a cheat sheet. Not much I can do now but wait.

Did anyone watch the pair skating?

China came in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th! WOW. It was a great show, but obviously the biggest story is the group that was 2nd coming back after the woman fell on her knee. I thought the throw was scarily clumsy, and she looked more freaked out than in pain, but that's how figure skating is, they sometimes let you continue after stopping. I'm happy that even the pairs competition was so exciting and competitive :)

Figure skating makes me happy

For me, watching Olympic figure skating is more nerve-wracking than any other sport.

I remember watching the figure skating finals four years ago on TV, and it was magical... I know, cheesey, but Sarah Hughes was too easy to love. I think in most people's minds, she is forever in lavender.

Here is something I find amazing. We all know about Tonya Harding clubbing Nancy Kerrigan at the knee via her goon at the 1994 Olympic tryouts. The amazing thing is, when the Olympics competition rolled around between the nemeses, it garnered the 6th highest rating in American television history (four of the top five being Super Bowl games). Isn't that crazy? To top off the story, Harding had a miserable performance involving an asthma inhaler, tears, a foot on the judges' table, a broken lace, and a restart; while Kerrigan took silver. The outcome couldn't've been more appropriate.

Grey's Anatomy "As We Know It" (spoiler)

Grey's Anatomy is one of the few shows that I actually get excited about seeing (the others being Lost and Veronica Mars). Tonight's episode was... very good and had a big shocking moment. Most episodes have a thoughtful revelation, but this one was... shocking. OK I heistate to say any TV moment is shocking, because that's almost like their job, to shock you once in a while. And I don't want to sound like an unsophisticated TV watcher. But I can't help but root for the characters and hope everything will turn out well, but then that would also mean a boring show. So here's the spoiler: the bomb goes off when the bomb-squad guy is holding it and he blows up right in front of Meredith.

The part of this episode that led up to the bomb explosion was done so well. A perfect sequence of scenes set to the song "Breathe" by Anna Nalick. I was pretty impressed when they had the guitar strumming in sync with the heart monitor's beeps. And then the major shocker right at the end of such a serene song made it all the more huge. But we've seen this device used many times before--chill song followed by a shocker. Such as in the episode of Buffy with Michelle Branch's "Goodbye to You" in the background of a sequence of sad scenes of characters leaving, then suddenly the kiss between Buffy and Spike... one of my all-time favorite Buffy moments.

The way I sum up "Grey's Anatomy" is... poignant characters. Ellen Pompeo plays a perfect glassy-eyed Meredith Grey, who doesn't know if she should laugh or cry at the sad irony of her life. Privileged, a doctor, good looking, but completely defeated by her mother's frustrating illness, her broken heart, and her ability to reduce everything down to its crappiness. She walks around the hospital like a zombie, and who can blame her? Her life sucks. It would suck to be in love with (the virtually flawless) Derek Sheperd, who still loves her but rejects her. It would suck to have to watch your mother deteriorate from world-class doctor to an Alzheimer's patient. It would suck to always be the only empathic person in the room. Yes, it sucks to be her, and you can tell by her permanent half smile, her very messy hair, her downward gaze, her nonchalance. The reason I love her character is that everyone can relate to her on a certain level, her pain.

Bomb squad guy: You have a sense of irony.
Meredith: When it's ironic.

What's in a Butterfly's Name

We went to the Nature Museum in Chicago today. The butterflies are their major attraction. It's a greenhouse you walk through with all the butterflies on trees and flying around you, it's amazing, even though I squirmed a little. This picture is of a glass case with actual cocoons hatching, all hung up by species and stage of hatching, so cool. There were some that literally had a butterfly coming out at that moment--that's what they are looking at in the picture.

Butterflies have always been special to me because my name Vanessa is the name of a family of butterflies. I learned today that they are urban butterflies because they can eat a large variety of foods, so they can live pretty much anywhere. Haha. Apparently there are lots of Vanessa butterflies in this area. Bet you didn't know the name Vanessa was actually invented; Jonathan Swift made up the name "Vanessa" by switching around the letters in his friend Esther Vanhomrigh's name, and his poem Cadenus and Vanessa is about her.

Finally, a quote I love that is on my website (www.thousandfoldorigami.com): "The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign." --Primo Levi (1919–1987), Italian chemist, author.

How pissed I am...

Thinking about the whole Danish-newspaper-with-offensive-cartoon-leads-to-arson/violence/outburst controversy makes me so angry, I want to bitch slap someone. I am so mad. ENRAGED. Some people are just un(freaking)believable. Why can't they just go F themselves instead? And that is all I'm going to say about that.

Am I depressed?

I am not depressed, I know. Because I read about clinical depression and take those tests and only answer "yes" for 2 out of the 10 questions. I haven't lost my appetite or weight and don't have strange sleeping patterns, and I don't cry spontaneously. But I am like a ball of emotion and the tiniest sad news or touching story tips my emotional scale. I used to cry every time I saw this one AT&T ad on TV about 5 yrs ago. I don't remember the exact copy anymore, one of the lines was "Why do we go to faraway places and look for familiar faces?" It was overall about our desire to be in touch with people while still having the freedom to leave them... and I am pathetic. I also cry every time I watch a non-celebrity episode of Oprah, like full-on bawling. I cry at some point of every movie, comedy, action--as long as there's a sentimental moment in there, I'm crying. ("You've got mail": the 2 scenes about her mom. "Con Air": the last scene with "How do I Live" in the background.) I am especially sad at night. Most nights, I can't even remember what it's like to be happy. But the next day I wake up and go outside and see the blue sky and breathe the fresh cold air and can't remember what it's like to be sad.

Anyway, when I'm sad at night, I would think about that film "Broadcast News," how Holly Hunter has a good cry all alone every night, just to let out all the stress from the day, in what might be considered a healthy way. But it's really sad when you think about it. Then I don't feel so bad, because I think, if Holly Hunter's character feels the way I do, then I'm not alone. My mom rented "Broadcast News" for me when I was interning at CNN. I would often refer to it when talking to people during high school, and they would look at me weird because they think I am talking about some obscure movie that no one's heard of. But that movie had major Oscar nominations, is referred to a LOT in other films, on TV (like in this week's episode of "Las Vegas"--concerning the sweaty palms), and in magazines, etc., but it seems like no one in the real world who's my age has heard of it!? Has anyone else noticed that?

So back to the question Am I depressed? No, but then what am I? Am I just extremely emotional? Yes, probably. Extremely emotional + pessimistic = sad. Makes sense.

My blog!!!

I've caved. I am entering the realm of blogging. Thoughts are constantly bursting out of my head and I end up sharing them with a select few who have to listen to me go on and on (and on) about my random thoughts. I know I am a quiet person by definition, but once I start with my "thoughts," I can't stop yammering and start to sound like the cheerleader in the T-Mobile ads who goes "You're not conceited, you're just honest!" I feel sorry for my poor listeners, so I've decided to have my own BLOG, transmit my very annoying and never-ending thoughts into cyberspace for all to hear. Please beware of my negativity and controversial opinions. And be aware that although my thoughts may seem trivial, they are really very important and serious to me, which is why I have to let it all out here or I will go crazy!!!

And my very scary and mean but still awesome English teacher in high school called me knockout girl once due to my last name, so that's where that's from.