HAHA

i guess i'd be lying if i said it didn't cheer me up.
http://office-words.www.nbc.com/

i want to clamp michael's face in a george foreman grill.

after today, i'm wondering if grills come in full body size.

to quote hunter s. thompson: some people get rich and others eat shit and die.

sometimes, don't i wish.

i love how every birthday has a song.

or at least it has for the past 3 birthdays.


this year's musical selection is brought to you by stephen christian... or anberlin, if you prefer... and their song "alexithymia":
Are you where you thought you'd be
So beautiful and only twenty-three...




thoughts? comments?
this year, in lieu of my usual reflection on how things have changed, i don't think i'm going to offer any sort of complaint or musing on whether or not i'd planned all this. i'm not going to mull over my original wishes, or even qualify the significance of my choices.

the truth is that i've wanted to be here for a long while now. so really, i've no complaints. and i don't want to dwell on how or why my thoughts were realigned, or even how different my life would have been otherwise. despite how much time i spent complaining before, i'm so grateful, and so happy with what You've done with me. the most i can hope for at present is the strength to keep moving. because i do know that the more i do, the more my future and purpose will make sense to me.


if there's anything to dwell on this birthday, it's that i'm beautiful, and even better... only 23.
p.s. i am completely amazed by justin's card. right now, i'd venture to say that he loves the office even more than me. and i really love the office.

the reason why we bought the bracelets.

"dwight, did i ever tell you why i left scranton? yeah, i didn't think i did. well, it was all about pam. yeah, i mean, she was with roy, and... i just couldn't take it. i mean, i lost it, dwight. i couldn't sleep. i couldn't concentrate on anything. and weird stuff like food had no taste. so my solution was to move away. it was awful. and it is something i wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. and that includes you."
-jim, the office



i'm all out of words, and i'm all out of tears. i'm done with forgiveness, shaking it off, moving on, and i'm even more done with blaming myself for how much it hurts. my only thought is... why delude ourselves with friendship, when being strangers is just as effective, and doesn't waste my time?

half-truths. omissions. white lies. sparing my feelings. it's all a nice way of saying the same terrible thing.

the ironic thing is that i'd actually felt bad for all the things i'd said that one time. i'd even considered myself unfair, thought maybe it was an overreaction. surely you remember, my epic meltdown. but looking back, i was spot-on, and then some. every word was well-deserved, and probably far kinder and more loving than it should have been.

i've considered the ways to articulate, or express, just how angry i am. with you, with me, and especially with the absence of any sort of apology. i'm angry about what was said and done, but even more so about how humiliated i was when i finally got the truth. that all my defenses crumbled, my foolishness was laid clearly before me. it had to come full circle, trickling down to me, as i stood beside you. i'm a failure, a liar, a wreck, a contradiction, on so many levels, but at least i told you who i was.

have you any idea how many people tried to tell me that you and i were mere manipulation? and how many times i said, with conviction, no, you don't understand. despite the insufferable flow from their mouth, they always tell me the truth, listen to me when i tell them to stop, confide in me and i in them, and support me when i really, truly need the help. despite all the things you see or in the case of most, don't see, they would never intentionally hurt me or lie to me.

i was so convinced, and it makes me want to crawl into a hole, or just stop trying with anyone, to learn that those people knew more than i did, despite my vehement defense. this is further compounded by the fact that you haven't apologized, for this or anything else. i have long pondered our philosophies on life; humility and confidence, honesty and reservation, how one finds validation. and while my route isn't the easiest, i'll take how i feel any day over making someone else feel this way.




as far as my future, please, i'm not that desperate.

what's your mosaic?

i came across this concept on a friend's blog. it's a personality mosaic. i absolutely loved the idea.

here's how it works:
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

the questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food? right now?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favourite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favourite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. What is one word that describes you?
12. What is your flickr name? (since i don't have a flickr name, i typed in my blog name instead)


what does your mosaic say about you?

我的中華的朋友你好!

today, after work, i was tying up some loose ends on my visas and watching the office, and this clip came up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AC1oj_SWJU

now, i'll be the first to admit that my chinese isn't great, but i've really come to appreciate this. i had to listen a few times to fully figure out what he was saying, but it's wo de zhonghua de pengyou, ni hao! which means, my chinese friends, hello!

okay, nobody else will think it's funny except chris, but i was dying.

for the love of karen

"to love another person is to see the face of God."
or so the saying goes.

ah, television. a medium with so much drivel to wade through, though i suppose it's no different than film. or art. or music. or literature.

can i admit right now that i miss alias? yes, i loved victor garber as jack bristow and ron rifkin as arvin sloane. i said it, okay?! character evolution... imagine that!

while i could do without the box in my living room, there are two shows i watch regularly.
lost.
and the office.

lost. oh, there's so much to say about you, lost. your writers are just so good, and i love them for it, but they are, undoubtedly, the biggest bastards in the world. without qualms, they kill off all our favorite characters. your writers even dangle it in front of us, your faithful viewers, for weeks on end, yet we feel violated when they actually follow through. what kind of twisted individuals could kill charlie? your writers, that's who. we know it had to happen, because you've been leading up to it for months, but it still seemed so unfair. you never cease to surprise me, lost, with your intricate plots and your complicated characters. and if that weren't enough, you make me wonderfully uncomfortable with how unflinchingly you examine the darkest aspects of being finite and mortal. you openly and regularly extend the assumed boundaries of time and space and the spiritual realm and reality and the divine and psychology and what we want and what can/can't be and miracles and a higher being and social constructs. your writers know that these are the boundaries we assume because, without them, we fear that we might not even be functional. so they expand and contract them, and we all know that, deep down, this disturbs us. thank you, lost, for being willing to explore these things, because the world hides from them too often.

but this blog isn't even about lost. it's about the office. thanks to mary beth, i am obsessed. i've seen all the episodes, and am constantly amazed by its exceptional cleverness.

like any faithful office viewer, i am rooting for pam and jim. we all know that they belong together, and we detest karen and roy for getting in the way of destiny.

but as i've watched, i think something needs to be said in defense of karen. though i know it's my proper place to advocate jim and pam, i can't help but feel a bit sorry for karen. i mean, she's not a bad person or anything. she doesn't treat jim poorly as roy did to pam. unlike roy and pam, she and jim have a lot in common, and though she has reason to get a little crazy at times, she keeps her cool. anything that she's ever been uncomfortable with is within reason. anyone would feel a little disconcerted if they found out that their boyfriend had a thing with a co-worker and had never mentioned it before. or how about... he ran away because he got his heart broken by the receptionist. what??

but i've gotta say that, above all, i think that maybe i simply feel for karen because i see some of myself in her.
for example

or

or


she's got spunk, that karen. she's competitive. she tries to say it like she means it. she's awkward. she's intelligent. she's understanding. really, i like karen. the only reason she's screwed is because she doesn't know enough about what's really going on. i've been told over and over again that you can't do anything about how a guy feels about you. either he likes you or he doesn't, and it doesn't matter how hard you try. or maybe he really does like you, but not as much as somebody else. i really believe jim likes karen. but she's not pam.
it's nothing you did, karen. there's nothing wrong with you. really, really. honestly, the reason jim went back to pam isn't about you. it's just... well... you're just not pam. you can't say or do or try or fix or want or give anything to make him change his mind. it really is that simple.

i don't know how it happens, how some women are karens and others are pams. there's nothing wrong with either type of person. though office fans everywhere are rooting for pam, i must step up and say that we karens are perfectly fine... we're smart, pretty, compassionate... but we just can't seem to get the guy to see us instead of the pams. we wander around the dating pool, confused because, by all accounts, we haven't done anything wrong. in the vastness of it all, most would agree that we're a decent catch. we're cool. we're good friends. we get along with guys. getting their attention isn't the problem. and when asked, the jims of the world can't explain why the karens aren't quite right. and as a member of the karen variety, i will say that it's frustrating not to understand what's wrong, when really, really, really... we try so hard.

as season 4 comes around, i propose that we cut karen some slack. being dropped for no apparent reason, for no tangible, definable characteristic, isn't easy. watching the pams defeat us time and again, and not knowing what they have that we don't is difficult.

karens, here's to perseverance.