do you read?

the book list from BBC 

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen ( )
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien ()
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte ()
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling ()
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (X )
6 The Bible - (x)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte ()
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x )
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (x )
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (X)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott ()
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy ( )
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ( )
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (x )
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier ()
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien ()
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ( )
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger ( x)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ()
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ( )
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ()
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (X)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens ( )
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ( )
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams ( )
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ( )
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( )
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (x)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll ()
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame ()
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ( )
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ( )
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (X)
34 Emma - Jane Austen ( )
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen ( )
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (X)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - (X)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ( )
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (x )
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne ()
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell ( )
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (X )
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving (x )
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ( )
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ()
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ( )
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood ( )
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding ( x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ( )
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel ( )
52 Dune - Frank Herbert ( )
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ( )
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen ( )
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ( )
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (x)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ()
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon ( x)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( )
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck ()
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ( )
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ( )
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ( )
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (X)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac ( )
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ( )
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding ( )
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ( )
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville ()
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens ()
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (X)
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett ()
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ( )
75 Ulysses - James Joyce ( )
76 The Inferno - Dante ()
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ( )
78 Germinal - Emile Zola ( )
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ( )
80 Possession - AS Byatt ( )
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens ()
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ( )
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker ( )
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ( )
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ()
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ( )
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (X)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (x )
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ()
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ( )
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ( )
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery ()
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ( )
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams ( )
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ( )
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ( )
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ()
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (x)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (X)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ()

24/100 books that BBC news say people only read 6 of the 100 books listed here. i think i'm doing pretty good for my age. i actually own a few of the books that i have yet to read. so thanks to my friends who read, because they encourage me to read more books outside of school. i didn't read harry potter, i find that comical but i've read some of the odder things.  now that i look over this list again i think i might want to start back on my reading and try to get in some more books a year so i can hit the 100 mark before i'm too old to see. 

its funny but i used to hate reading. i didn't like the process of it, i think it was because i was not exposed to enough of it when i was younger, when i was little i was making up worlds in my head and making things with glue and cardboard creating worlds that my imaginary people would go to. i was in plays and i was constantly doing creative things at school but after high school i somehow started to enjoy it. i even dated this guy who gave me some books and i kinda read them all to try to impress him, and then i was hooked. my best friend reads a lot, how she finds the time i do not know but she always recommends books that i end up loving. its nice to be able to talk to people about books, not to sound all smartsy fartsy but actually its interesting how people think of the story differently. i find it the same when i go to the museum with people, everyone will see something different or react to it differently but no one is ever wrong. its open for interpretation and i guess i like those aspects of life. things that are not concrete but can change as the world changes and grows. 

fork it

where to go, what to do, who to ask ... 

i'm at that point where there's a fork in the road. well actually there's not fork. i feel like i'm sitting in the middle of a bowl of spaghetti. i have to pick a noodle and go find out where it leads to. i'm about a few months away from graduation. i'll be done with my undergrad, finally. with all the hard work that I've put myself, friends and family through I'm actually close to being done. but the problem ahead is where to go? i have no clue. i wouldn't mind staying in Pittsburgh now, but i'm not sure if i should. what if going back to Los Angeles is wrong? what will i do? 

for the last three years, i thought that my life was in Los Angeles. but now I'm coming to the idea that i can go anywhere and be okay. that's one of the things that living away from everything i knew instilled in me. so now I'm open to even more things. I've always made sure that i was not specialized anything, i am a firm believer that flexibility is the key to survival in a world like ours. so now the problem is finding a niche that i will be successful in and that will help me utilized all my random skills. my professors are telling me different things that they envision me doing... 

'art theorist' 'consultant of all things' those are few things I've come across this week. not that its a bad thing, but its kinda hard when everyone keeps asking what i'll be doing after i graduate. at this point i'm confused. i guess this is where i just step back, enjoy the ride and let fate take the controls to where i'll be.. hope its fun and filled with food and art. 

shalom. 

hard times..

if you haven't been living in a mansion or in a time capsule i'm sure you know that times are rough. i mean its sucks a little okay a lot. everywhere i look people are sad about the money issue. many people are looking for jobs, getting laid off, just simply frustrated as to why they are in the position they are in. and its really hard to look at them and say its going to be okay. one thing that i've notice is that people are stressing soo much about something that they cannot change. 

really, i just want to seriously do what some ancient shaman did in china... gather the village under a tent and burn some serious ganja in the center and sit in the tent till the smoke died out. yes they really did this. i found that in a history book, i'm pretty sure its valid as i am a history major and i know where to look. *i know how to use a library, thank you very much. anyhow, they did this to reach a more spiritual side of life and perhaps getting a be high did help them ascend to some other world. 

the world is really bad right now, the super rich are getting away for f**king up the lives of the regular everyday folks and now we need the new government to fix everything and everything really quickly. how some people let this go on as long as it has is beyond me. but what i'm trying to say is that sometimes life is hard and that's especially when you need to think about the good times in your life. i was reading that experiences and memories are much better for your own mental happiness then material things.. which i why i am grateful I've done the many things I've done in my life without any regrets- i am filled with good times to think about. maybe that's why i walk around with a smile on my face when its freezing out, when money is short, when classes get hard, when i cant find a job... i think about some random things... 

such as, limo rides across the street in Vegas, indoor camping, poolside conversations, all the little crushes I've had on random people, the time i walked into the door (that happens more often then i would like), the dinner i had with loved ones, the faces of people who eat and enjoy my food... the list goes on but these are things that keep a smile on my face. I'm sure there a tons of superficial people out there who only care about the designer clothes they wear or the car they drive; i've had those things and really its nothing compared to an evening with close friends, eating great food and laughing till we cry. so if you're low on money or even energy, take about five minutes to look through pictures and ticket stubs to remember the fun times and all the love you have in your life. for me, my dog does a magical thing. she doesn't care if  i can buy her tons of treats or toys, she's just happy to be my friend. and sometimes you should just be grateful to be alive and able to live. i mean from a Buddhists point of view, i could have reincarnated as something that cannot be loved or love. . now that would sad... 

with that, i hope everyone realizes that if we do have some more weeks/months/years of hard times, that its not healthy to dwell on the things you cannot change. but realize what you have and cherish those who you love in your life. 

shalom. 

really now... lets see what i'll respond with

when i was a freshmen in high school, i had plans, lots of them. planning was my thing, planning every moment of my life. i love planning, i still plan to this day. but its a different type of planning. not everything you plan for will all happen just as you want, things change and you have to be flexible to them. if you keep looking ahead sometimes you miss what's right in front of you. 

i don't try to please my parents. some how that's a trait i got and i think I'm going to blame it on birth order. most kids are happy to bring home straight a's to their parents, i hid making the honor roll from them, i never showed my parents any awards i got. why? because to them it didn't mean anything, but for me- getting a little art award in the third grade meant everything. from then i stopped showing them the achievements i've made. though they may be minor to my parents they are the little things that keep me going. so this little streak of pissing off the parents have been something i've gotten really good at. i answer questions with impossible situations just to see if they take me seriously, and they dont, they never did, to them i'll always be the youngest daughter who doesn't appreciate life and what the hard working parents done for her... well i do appreciate my parents. ask my uncles, they know if they ever speak badly of my parents they might get physically hurt by a girl. 

not that i'm completely a rebel from chinese culture or anything. i don't have any tattoos or odd piercing. but the mindset that i have towards people who annoy me is a bit on the bad side. i just blogged for my university and decided to copy the whole mission statement in it. as per someone saying our blogs did not have any accounts of the mission statement. as my response i verbatim copied it to the blog and posted it. i dont like being told what to do especially when it's my time and my opinion. i'll write what i want and if you have a problem with it then screen the writers you ask to volunteer a bit better. i'm sure my mentor who is an alumni of the university will not be pleased once he reads it. but o well. he knows i'm a good kid and i'm just standing up for my thoughts. i think that's in the mission statement, so i guess i didn't really do anything that bad... *there goes the justifying mode again. 

i guess what i'm trying to get across in this entry is that i get annoyed with people who think they can control my life. no one is living my life but me. if i wasn't doing exactly what i wanted to do everyday of my life, then its one not worth any merit or respect. i have many friends, colleagues and teachers who i respect with all my heart. i think they respect me too, so for me to ever change the way i live to please a few is a crime in my thoughts. living your life for you should always be the objective. and if you happen to believe that you should earn the respect of others and help people as well as share happiness in the world, then you're not that bad of a person. its in the actions of what you do that matter more than what you say to people. anyone can say they will do something great, but doing something great without telling the world to get praises means more to me..

shalom. 

i like pittsburgh...

when i say i'm from los angeles, people always ask. "how do you like pittsburgh?" and you know what? that answer has changed so much over the last two years. when i was younger i can tell you that i never thought that i might like living anywhere else but Los Angeles. but i was told that you have to live somewhere else for about 2 or more years to get the full gist of the city and truly learn about yourself and the living conditions you can or cannot live without. 

besides the weather, I'm not going to lie, but Pittsburgh is not that bad. its actually pretty nice. people aren't really rude, they are very nice, just don't root for anything but a Pittsburgh team. i like pittsburghers, they are real, no b***s***. its quite refreshing. i havent really been out much socializing with a lot of people, but so far the people I've met through school and working and volunteering, I'm  happy to say that I'll be returning to visit Pittsburgh after i am done with school. getting this out of state school perspective is something that is going to help me in the future i know it. i have that advantage of knowing how it is to live away from everything i knew. and I'm happy that i took this opportunity for personal growth. it took me a while to finally like this place. 

but today, on assignment for photography class. taking urban shots of the city really made me think how much character that this city has. the people are pleasant and are die hard fans. although i did not get to capture this on the road, this morning, the highway light display said "Welcome to Pittsburgh, Home of the Super bowl Champions "and with that a big smile came about. a city that plays together and cheers together is truly a city that knows how to be as one. they even riot together... apparently police force in riot gear was on the look out for last night's riots after the super bowl. that's amazing. i have much respect for this city and the people i have met. and for sure Pittsburgh will always have a warm place in my heart, and im going to think of the winters i've experienced as an imaginary phase of my life. *its much easier to pretend its not real then to actually see the temperatures in the 20s and say its not that cold. i'm really a wimp when it comes to weather. 

with that. go steelers. yay for Pittsburgh. 

shalom.