Ceci n'est pas une blog post

This is, instead, a mere future reflection of posts to come. An intentional and hopeful self-fulfilling prophecy. And so I present to you Things I Have Been Meaning To Write About But Haven't So I Am Posting Them As A List Both To Encourage Writing and Pass The Time:

- Historical Justification for my obsession with Scion commercials

- Why David Lynch is a such a baller

- Understanding hallucination perception

- Bonnaroo memories (Completely unrelated to previous item. I think.)

- I FINALLY GOT A CAR and all is well in the world.

- General World Cup enthusiasm

- Postmodern analysis of some Adult Swim programs

I know part of the point of blogging is spurting out information in a well-paced, timely manner but I only have limited access to caffeine and (more importantly) a stable internet connection so this is no longer an option. Plus I am lazy. Very very very lazy.

I GOT DA POWER!

And it's about time. I'd bet money that one more day would have irreversibly damaged my ability to ever care about school again. Ever. But what do you expect following a week of no assignments, no class, no responsibilities? As much as I appreciated the slack (given my entire neighborhood was without power) it screwed up my body cycles of "no worries summertime" and "study study schooltime." And really, how can I do homework with only 2 hours of available daylight and a city-wide curfew? How am I supposed to focus on classes when I have soooOOOOoo much complaining to do?
I really hope getting electricity back at my house switches on an a fresh academic mindset. I probably need that more than most household appliances anyway (because the most important things are battery operated anyway, amirite?)

Maybe next time the rain-gods will plan this out a little better: the idea is to pummel Houston with exciting! dangerous! weather without actually causing any longterm damage.
The middle class demands entertainment, after all.

Above picture taken at the Esplanade post-storm.
That'll teach 'em to plant trees in the area.

Intro... AIRPLANE!... Campus Tour... Strobe lights, Samurai Swords, Alcoholic Piñatas... and assorted asides

DAY ONE

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So I know you've been wondering why.
Why California? Why now? Oh dear god, why has she left me for so long, WHY?!
Background info: my grandma likes to travel in the summer, and she was just lonely enough to ask me to come with her this year. Originally she wanted to go to Mexico or Spain, but unfortunately, the (people we were staying with realized that I would be coming along and) plans fell through. California was the next best choice because we have family out here: the 2nd daughter of five lives in Bakersfield and her two children, my cousins, live in Novato (near-ish Berkeley or Oakland).
But I actually left just because I hate you. Yes, you.

And this is where my photo-blog of a journey begins.
[WARNING: I'm going to list out the things I do each day as if I were some attention starved blogger addict (as if!), so for those of that you don't actually care about what I do, don't waste your time reading. Scan the titles and pictures and you'll be good to go. I tend to get obnoxiously meticulous when I document my life, which is why I don't usually make the posts public. But enough about me. Back to me.]

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I was super excited for the plane ride since I haven't flown anywhere since I was a rising senior in high school. (Wow. Please ignore the extent to which saying that makes me sound like a spoiled brat.) I love plane rides, especially really long ones. It's a freebie break from life to just sit, chill, readabook, stare at clouds, gain two hours of life, and accept free drinks from strangers. Really, my idea of the perfect outing. Oh yea, and the best part about airplane rides is when you get off the plane you ARE VERY FAR AWAY FROM HOME. That's always pretty cool. Did I mention that airports/planes are also perfect people-watching terrain? Mostly because everyone too preoccupied wandering around trying to find where they are supposed to be to notice some passersby happen to be staring at them and jotting down detailed notes about their various facial expressions. Though I also mean it in the warm&fuzzy sense. Maybe.

Landed. Drove home. Passed the fuck out.

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GOOD MORNING, California!
Started the day off by driving my older cousin to work at Hamilton Field so that I could steal his car for the day. Bought some 4.50$/gal gas and then set off for UCBerkeley, where my younger cousin is a student. I got a nice tour of the university and took some pretty brochure-worthy pictures, if I may say so myself. (This is the part where I off-handedly mention that I've decided to drop out of Rice and move to California. There are so many trees here. I am powerless to their call!) After exploring the surrounding area a bit, we went out for Thai food, (I think I ruptured my stomach. It was so worth it) and then we drove home and made dinner. Huzzah (If anything binds the family together, it's gotta be our joint obsession with food. Mmmm fooooood.)
And that was my DAY. (And that is my mango ice cream from the restaurant. It's so much more satisfying to see your food smile at you before I eat it... Take that as you will. )

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As for my NIGHT...
I went out with my older cousin to a friend of a friend's birthday party. It was a pretty cute get-together slightly reminiscent of our first-semester-freshman-year-parties, back when alcohol abuse was a novelty. At the same time, the party seemed to be a premonition of future parties to come: a group of young adults meeting up at a friend's house to escape the drudgery of their jobs and desperately cling onto the last remnants of the "college experience" still acceptable for their age group. There were some sloppy (aka n00b) games of beer pong, a vodka-watermelon (which was DISGUSTING, by the way. I recommended next time they try oranges ), and a pirate ship piñata. This was the BEST PART. Get this- to open the piñata, the birthday boy turned on a strobe light and sliced it open with a samurai sword (I assure you, it was a real fucking sword.) It was the classiest and most responsible thing that I have ever seen (to top it off, the piñata was filled with an assortment of tiny liqueurs, condoms, and fake mustaches.) Moral of the story: people never grow up. Thank god.

(The fire pic was from grillin' dinner. Not that I needed an excuse. Fires are kickass.)

[Guilty. A lot of this post is a redux copypasta of messages I send people. This is because I'm a lazy piece of shit. And really, there's only so much you can say about what you did in a day. So anyway, to those people, if you even read this: I'm going to continue to be a lazy piece of shit and recycle messages here as the days go by. It's also because I care about the environment, okay? California does that to you.]