ahhhh...i love having the entire place to myself. although last night, i was just a teensy bit creeped out sleeping by myself. the front door was locked, of course, but i closed my bedroom door and locked it as well just to, you know, be on the safe side. and, i already told jo and deb this, but earlier in the evening, i went pee and didn't even close the door!! =D oh, the freedom!! it's starting to feel a lot more like winter, although today was a very autumn day. sunny and clear, yet brisk. i've had the heater on in the apartment, so it's very toasty in here. just the way i like it. :)

so what'd i do last night? talked to jo for a while. just whining to her about how i will forever be single although there's really nothing wrong with being single, it's just the FOREVER part that bugs me. being the good daddy that she is, she listened and just gave wise words of well, wisdom. ;) worked on my webpage a lot as well. don't know if i mentioned it on blogger, but i'm working on an online photo album. got a little carried away with myself when i first got my scanner this summer, and started scanning in like, every single picture i own. so figured i may as well make an online photo album. it's going to have pictures of my parents, me as a baby, pictures from msj (my high school), and pictures from ucsd. last night, i was working on my parents' section. just finished it today. it was quite a bit of work. and the worst part is, my parents' section actually has the least pictures in it. so that means the other sections are going to take FOR-EV-ER. by the time i finish the entire thing, my grandkids will be born.

anyway, speaking of my parents, i got an email from my mom today. it's so cool! she sent me a link to an online vietnamese-english translator. i was totally looking for one. i use altavista translator a lot for italian so when i was first taking the vietnamese class, i was like, man i wish there was an online vietnamese translator. and there is! and my mom sent me the link!! and guess what else. she wrote part of the email in english and the other part in vietnamese. and i can actually understand some of it! it's a little hard, i don't understand everything, but i think she said her and daddy bought me a new chair or something? (haha, i could be totally mistranslating this) and they also bought a flower pot for me? although why would they buy me a flower pot? actually, i can pick out random words and figure out what they mean, but i'm having trouble putting them all together. you know, learning vietnamese has made me realize why my mom's english is so bad. it explains everything. i realized that when she speaks english, she uses vietnamese grammar. i can't believe i just noticed that. (well, i didn't JUST notice it, i realized it a few days ago) wow, i felt like twenty wrinkles forming in my brain just now. i also noticed (a long while ago, when she first started emailing me last year), she writes english the same way she speaks it (although, that's basically what i'm doing right now) so it comes out REALLY bad. she says things like, "do you exciting?" or "you email for me" although i have a feeling if you translated that literally into vietnamese, it would make sense. anyway, i just thought it was really sweet that my mom wrote to me in vietnamese. you know, i think a huge part of the reason i'm taking vietnamese is to make my parents proud of me. :)

okay, so what'd i do today? i woke up at noon. finished my parents' section on my webpage. sat around watching tv for a while. caught the beginning of this figure skating special. it was called "hip hop on ice starring tara" (as in tara lipinski - eew). it was basically all these pro skaters - all these OLD pro skaters - figure skating to hip hop music. okay, first of all, although i am not the biggest fan of hip hop music, i still appreciate it and there are a lot of songs that i really like, but i have to say this: hip hop music DOES NOT belong on the ice. figure skating and hip hop are like oil and vinegar - they just don't mix. wait, are those the two things that don't mix? i always get confused. anyway, second of all - all these pro skaters (with the exception of slutty lipinski and nicole bobek) are OLD. THEY ARE OLD AS DIRT. okay, okay, i was exaggerating just a bit now, but pro skaters are basically retired amateur skaters; there's nothing really professional about them, they're just retired. so, it was just all these old, retired people skating/"dancing" (ohgod..) to hip hop music and it was just so humiliating. i felt totally embarrassed for them and i just could not stop cringing. i eventually changed the channel. but it was bad. it was VERY VERY bad. even tara what's-her-name looked terrible even though she's young. see, you just can't skate to hip hop music. it doesn't work. it's like hip hop dancing to mozart. or ballet dancing to limp bizkit. no no no.

okay, anyway, after watching the beginning of that debacle, i watched dexter's laboratory for a while. i love that show, it's so funny. there was this thing where they had this little kid making up his own dexter story and it was so cuuuute!! he even did the dexter voice and everything. it was so adorable listening to this little kid trying to sound like dexter by saying things like, "yew are so steeeeewpid!!!" he actually did a really good job. i couldn't stop giggling.

then i finally got off my butt around 330, changed clothes, and walked to blockbuster to rent some movies. this year, i'm a little bit closer, so the walk wasn't too bad. i just don't really like walking off campus here though. i mean, i don't mind it at all in berkeley, because everyone walks off campus. the city was like built for pedestrians. well, kinda. you know what i mean. but here, it's like everyone drives. no one walks. so every time i walk off campus, i feel incredibly self-conscious. and i hate crossing busy streets. it just feels like everyone sitting in their cars is staring at me. which, of course, they probably are. and i just feel so strange being like the only person walking around on the sidewalks. i don't really like being a pedestrian around here. but oh well. i made it there and back just fine. i rented three dvd's because blockbuster was having this thing where you can rent three dvd's and get a bag of popcorn for 9.99. so i did. i rented someone like you (mmm...hugh jackman. helloooo...), chocolat, and return to me. so i'm in a sappy mood; i'm on my period, okay? so yay, chick flick fest tonight!

hmm...was thinking about ordering out bj's, but i really need to save money, so i'll just have pancakes for dinner again. i swear, my eating schedule is reversed. i had potstickers for breakfast (although i guess you could call it lunch because i ate at 130) and now i'm going to have pancakes for dinner. okay, so i'm going to do my laundry now, then start my chick flick fest. yay!