The 2009-10 Phoenix Suns

My heart's broken. I love my team and I miss them already.

I haven't quite figured out how to do cuts (or if I can even do html cuts) on this, so I'm just going to cross-post this from my livejournal, because it's easier that way.

Here's to you, 2009-10 Phoenix Suns!
You put up a really brilliant fight!
And no matter what happens next year, you'll not be forgotten.

The Last Lecture

Yesterday, I began and finished Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture. Some family friends had given me the book for my high school graduation, but until now, I'd been a little wary of it. It seemed like the sort of books my dad read (the kind that were all about efficiency and self-improvement) and occasionally forced me to read. Normally I like my dad's taste in books, but whenever I had one of these recommended to me, they always seemed excruciatingly difficult to get through. Like how interesting could Rich Dad, Poor Dad be to a 13-year-old compared to The Last Dragonlord?! Right.

Well, I finally read it. It surprised me a lot. Yeah, it was all about optimism, so naturally, I took it with a grain of salt, but it also really imparted on me the urgency that should be associated with life. It helped me re-evaluate a recent relationship and was just the boost I needed right before a really important round of finals. Honestly though, read it. And watch this:

A New Day

The world looks really awesome through darkly red-tinted sunglasses. I bought these recently, because, as usual, I had lost my old pair within 6 months of having purchased it. Usually, I dislike such a dark tint, but my contact-laden eyes have gotten more light-sensitive since the Accutane, so I went for them. It's a beautiful sunny San Diego day and every thing I've looked at while walking has looked way more awesome than usual. It's full-out Photoshop tint madness! The trees with the red leaves (whose name I tried to find but was unsuccessful) look like there are flaming embers at the tip of each leaf. I realize I sound like I might be high, but this is really very cool. And it is my sense of wonder at the world that now has me skipping class to sit on a pretty little hill and read.
It's a really good thing today is gorgeous, because otherwise I would be monumentally depressed.

I am an incredibly avid fan of the Phoenix Suns, having grown up there and begun my venture into basketball watching just before Amar'e Stoudemire was selected straight out of high school to the Suns in 2002. They had a pretty good thing going then with Stephon Marbury, Shawn Marion and Amar'e making for a strong offense, but overall the team lacked a unifying driving force. The heart was missing. Then, in 2004, Steve Nash was traded to Phoenix from Dallas and everything changed. That season, the Suns had the best record in the league, but fell to the San Antonio Spurs in the conference finals, beginning one of the most intense rivalries in the league. I cried when they lost. Now, this year, with a bit of a different, but very strong, team, we finally beat them (swept 4-0!) and now we're facing another of our most challenging rivals, the infamous Lakers. Watch the clip. In the last second of last night's game, my heart just completely broke.

Bibliophilia

I am a bookworm. Books bring me as much pleasure as really good sales do. So, imagine my excitement to discover that there was a huge used book sale happening on campus! The miser in me practically did a jumping heel-click. My haul consists of 20 books for $57. Now I'm going to bore you with the names of every single one. Enjoy!:

Forbidden Fruit - La Fontaine A Beautiful Mind - Sylvia Nasar The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison Now You See Her - Whitney Otto Byron - Geoffrey Trease Appointment with Death - Agatha Christie By The Pricking of My Thumbs - Agatha Christie The Roots of English - Robert Claiborne Webster's French-English-French Dictionary Paradise of the Blind - Duong Thu Huong

Good Hair - Benilde Little The Deceiver - Louise Cooper Shroud of Madness - Carl Sargent Pendragon - Stephen Lawhead In The Heart of the Sea - Nathaniel Philbrick The Rapture of Canaan - Sheri Reynolds L'État de Siège - Albert Camus Final Exit - Derek Humphrey Endless Night - Agatha Christie Evangeline and Other Tales - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Well, hello, summer reading list!
Along with this bibliophilia comes also a profound love of bookshelves.

Found at Freshome. And check out the rest of the blog, by the way, because some of their interior decor is awesome! Well, ta! J'irai lire!

Theme Party

In a moment of brilliance, while pawing through my closet for Audrey Hepburn-esque clothing, my brain came up with a fantastic idea for the "I Wish I Were..." party I mentioned before. And so, suddenly, I was attending as a Stepford wife.

Ever since I started watching I Love Lucy and Leave It To Beaver with my mom when I was 8, a small, secret part of me has always wanted to be a housewife that cleans and cooks all day, wears pretty dresses, and lives to please her man. It seems like it'd be a nice, comfortable life during which I would have ample time to read all the books I could get my hands on. That being said, one time, in the ten minutes I had to wait for something to centrifuge in the lab, I ended up reorganizing the entire lab bench so that everything was arranged by color. I'd be bored out of my mind as a housewife. But, pretending was fun! I wore my black-with-red-polka-dots dress with a little shrug, fabulous curls and makeup (red lipstick included, of course), and a flower pin in my hair. People liked it.

Also, quick update on the new hair and face regimen: Seems to be alright. I may have screwed up the preliminary results by being ill, stressed, and hormonal all at the same time this past week. However, my face isn't greasy from the oil-cleanse, so that's a plus. And the hair's looking greasy, like it should be at this point, but it's a weird greasy; thick and unmoving. I am waiting for it to get better. I hope it gets better soon, because...quite frankly, this is disgusting. And no amount of joy at not needing hairspray on my curls is going to change that.

Dressy

I went shopping on Monday, as a small birthday gift to myself. Cheap as I am, though, I only ended up going to Ross (don't judge). The haul was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself, and if my camera were working, I would show it to you, but instead I will be forced to find similar pictures:

Except the wedge part was straw and there were big white flowers on the toes. I didn't end up buying them, but I'm seriously considering going back. My problem with heels here is that the campus is so hilly and I have to walk through so much uneven terrain that I'm literally weighing beauty with pain. Sprained ankles aren't very attractive. Word.


Not sparkly (a shame, I know), and in red. Shows off the tattoo. =]

I'm having trouble finding pictures for the other two, but my favorite has to be the one I'm wearing today: It's a sleeveless, gray, shift-top made out of lacy, floral material. It also has this attached fake-pearl necklace and bow with it. At first, I thought the attached necklace was sort of tacky, but it's starting to grow on me.

A friend of mine is having an "I wish I were..." themed birthday party tonight that I think I might attend as Audrey Hepburn. I think I could just wear what I'm wearing now to it, with my curls and all. My other choice would be Lady Gaga. Either way, I will be wearing a lot of very red lipstick tonight.

Birthdays

Today is my birthday.

I've always been a big believer in birthdays, because I was always the youngest out of my friends, and therefore, it was incredibly important for me to gain that year. I hear though, that birthdays become less and less significant and noteworthy when one gets older. It is with that sad thought in mind that I take on my next new goal. I have this bucket list of things that I want to do in my life, and I have just added this to it: Make every birthday special for yourself. Do something you really want to do. Make yourself happy, so when people ask what you did for your birthday, you can answer them with something interesting. And, even when people stop asking, you will have done something to make yourself feel like a better person. The goal for this birthday is to find the right balance of natural care for my hair and skin. New thing I'm trying: Oil-Care Method on my skin.



Last post, I talked about starting the "No 'Poo" method of hair care. So far, I've only done one wash, and I'm almost positive I used way too much baking soda, but my hair is doing alright. My hair is short right now (I donated 11 inches recently!), but pretty thick and smooth, so unless I'm planning on putting it up, I have to blow dry it. Usually, even the short hair took about 15-20 solid minutes to dry, and yesterday, I blow-dried it in 10. I don't know what exactly that means, but I like it. Also, we're going on a full day after now, and I have yet to see the signs of greasiness/flaking that I associate with needing another washing.

I also made that super-vague, dodgy statement about life decisions before, right? Some of those bad life decisions are motivating me. It's one of those strange things where I think, "Well, if I'm going to do this, then I have to overcompensate the negative stigma by being ten times better and accomplished at other things." I mean, that's a small part in why I'm making so many changes to myself recently, I think. Rationalizing? Me? Never.

Sun God Festival and Tips

Today is the Sun God Festival at my school. It's loud and crazy outside my apartment, but I kind of like the silence of our apartment right now. Nobody's here, Drake and Relient K play in a couple hours, and I'm blogging about not shampooing. I've read several blogs lately about not washing one's hair with shampoo. I want to do this. I am all about my hair being healthy, and it really wasn't before I cut it off, but I want it to be. So I think the new project is going to be not washing my hair. Yeah it'll be oily for a couple weeks, but in the end, it will be better.



Also, lately, I've been talking to a friend I hung out with last summer a lot, which I think is bad for me and I shouldn't do too much because it makes me miss the closeness again. Seriously, where are the hawties with bodies who aren't growing their hair out to a million inches at this school? J'envie d'une petite somme.

The Will and the Won't.

I have been making life decisions these past couple days. Some of these life decisions are big and some are small, some are good and some are bad, and some have yet to be made which is making me turn into a ball of stress. Living situation, case-in-point. Best decision this week, though, has to be the Deathly Hallows tattoo. Originally, I wanted words to go underneath it, but being indecisive, I could not decide on a phrase (yes, for two years, I couldn't decide. don't judge). So, I just got the symbol. It's awesome because it's small and classy and the artist stylized it in such a way that it really looks exactly the way I imagined it. Point being, I honestly don't think I will ever regret this decision. It's odd that Harry Potter is truly such a big part of my life. I am a strange one. I also spent the last hour OCD-ly popping every bubble on the sheet of bubble wrap that came with my mail, in case there wasn't enough proof.

Other people's bliss makes me bitter. Yeah, I'm one of those people. But, in the movies, those people are the ones who get their pessimistic, sad lives turned around by the love of their lives or some monumental event. Maybe I will get my 11:11 wish or have a bookstore suddenly fall on the Rady School of Management next to my dorms to which I suddenly get unlimited gift cards or some glitch will turn my GPA into a 4.0. I want to be this better person, but I keep putting it off till tomorrow. The Five People You Meet In Heaven is truly inspiring though. I read it in a day, and I'm pretty sure I annoyed some of my coworkers by ignoring them a bit. I think I'm finally going to read Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture . It's about time, especially considering I have owned it for two years now. Let the not-studying commence!

I want the 50s.

I really want for this blog to have a sort of theme that isn't my life, but I cannot think of anything right now. But, true to form, I'm procrastinating a huge essay by: a) writing this post and b) shopping for 50s vintage dresses online.

Here are the gems I have discovered today that I will never be able to afford:





How adorable is that 50s Vintage halter maillot? God. I wish i could justify this $75 purchase, but I just can't. No matter what angle I try to look at it, it always ends in, yeah, but it's SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS. Maybe after next paycheck... T-T

The Deathly Hallows

I always wonder if in ten years I am going to feel similarly, about my life and the things I like, to the way I do now. I know that I will always be amazed by certain things. Books, for example, and their ability to whisk one away to different places and times. This was brought on by a recent re-reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Similar to the first time I read this book, the end of it has left me feel oddly about the future. I like certainty and the lack of it in this case really stresses me out. I'm at a point in my life where I'm just beginning to deal with real responsibilities. I'll be 19 in about 2 weeks, I'm looking for an apartment to live in next year and one to sublet for the summer, I'm trying to plan a trip to India, I'm trying to figure out how much money I will need to save in order to pay rent and car insurance for the next year, and to top it all off, I'm trying to figure out a schedule that allows me to graduate 2 quarters early, continue working, and retain my sanity. Imagine when I have to pay bills and stuff. Somehow, I've always been of the mind that the "next phase" of my life will be better and less stressful, but I am constantly proven wrong. I need to make an appointment with my academic adviser. Or potentially a therapist. Honestly, though, how am I supposed to concentrate on six more weeks of school with things like the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, reading tons of books, and India in the future?