10 March 2009

1:15 am

In the (almost) complete silence of the library, I hear the tapping of my fingertips on the keyboard of my laptop sitting, incidentally, on top of my lap. I am reading about sound and hearing in preparation for my Speech Pathology midterm. As I think about sound, I think about the sounds I hear every day. I have just come from PCN Gospel Choir rehearsal, so I have the phrase “He knows” repeating in my head. A girl from my essay class last semester has just approached me with her friend – apparently James Franco is in our library right now. Awesome. If I see him, I’m supposed to call them. Great…

So back to my thoughts on sound: I find the sound of my own voice quite irritating sometimes. Even when I’m not listening to a recording of myself, my voice sounds whiny and nasal. I hate the fact that I hate the sound of my voice, but it’s really the only one I’ve got. Yesterday/last night/early this morning, I went all-out with showing spirit for our Filipino club’s dance team (which won 2 out of the 3 categories not including “Overall Performance”; we lost that by 0.3 points – WTH). So this morning, my throat was a teensy bit scratchy, probably due to the trauma I caused my larynx last night/early this morning. Trying to sing during Gospel Choir rehearsal didn’t do wonders for my voice, either.

With that said, I’m going to continue studying for my Speech Path midterm tomorrow, and I’ll copy and paste a rant I posted on Facebook a few days ago. Enjoy.

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~*~ Angry Rant from that Little Asian Chick You Know ~*~

 

Yes, you all knew this note was coming sometime or another. So here it is: MY HEIGHT NOTE

Now what, you might ask, prompted the urge to write this particular note? The members of a Facebook group for NYU c/o 2012 were recently invited to an event at a club or a bar or whatever. Having declined the invitation, I decided to look at the description anyway, just to see what was going on. The part that caught my eye was this:

"Start your weekend off with me at Mr. West. Skip the line then party at my table. As Always there's free drinks and a dope crew to party with. Two rules:

1) guys must bring girls with them
2) no shorties- girls must be 5'7 or taller to come"

WTF man. WTF. If you're going to discriminate against girls that are shorter than 5'7" (which is, btw, taller than the average woman's height), then I don't WANT to go to your f***ing party! It's people like you that make people like me insecure about themselves. I've been teased ceaselessly about my height for as long as I can remember. I'm pretty sure I got over it sometime in high school, even though people didn't stop bothering me.

Hell, people used to (and still do) play "Catch-the-Caroline" *cough*SpencerScott*cough*, or in other instances "Toss-the-Leprechaun." *cough*FredDonEmmanuelDevin*cough* I've come to terms that I'm a little person. In my "About Me" section on my FB profile (well, on mine, it says "À propos de moi"), I describe myself as "short/compact/vertically challenged/travel size/petite/fun size."

I'll admit there are some irritating things about being petite. It's a fairly short list (haha pun not intended), so I may as well list them here:
1. When tall people hold my belongings above their head, or put them on the top shelf of a bookcase. It's funny the first time, but when it happens too often, that's just uncool.
2. It's difficult for me to find clothing that fits properly, believe it or not. More specifically, it's hard to find pants, since my hips are a bit wider than mainstream America says they should be for a person my height.
3. In sophomore year of high school, the musical we put on was Gypsy. I was cast as a pre-pubescent boy. WTH.
4. There have been days when my neck actually hurts from having to look up at people all the time. That's where people who give good neck rubs come in. =] <3
5. I often can't see what's going on and I risk being squished when I'm in a large crowd. (See #6 & #7 below)

So that's it for the negative points. Now for the positive things about being little. (I'm only writing this second list to alleviate my mood.)
1. I'm cute. Duh. xP
2. Wearing heels is acceptable. I dislike it immensely when really tall girls wear really tall heels -- it's almost as if they do it to spite us short girls.
3. I have enough room in my bed to stretch my legs and arms when I wake up in the morning.
4. I don't need a lot of space in an airplane or on the subway/BART (then again, the seats on BART are really roomy).
5. I always got to stand near the front or in the front row during choir performances.
6. I still get piggyback rides, especially if I can't see what's happening in front of a crowd of people. =P
7. I can usually navigate/push my way through a crowd. ^_^

That's it for now. I may edit later, but I doubt I'll be up for it. xP So there you have it: My height note.

<3 Caroline

Ok, I admit that I've had old Britney songs stuck in my head the past few weeks/month-ish or so. But this title (like all the other titles, which are songs, if you haven't already noticed) is quite relevant. Now just what was it that I did again?

I fell down the stairs. Again. Oops.

This time, it wasn't in the subway with the icky gross stairs. Nope. This time I was heading to the basement of my dorm to put my laundry in the dryer. Well, I made it down 10 flights of stairs, but on the last one, I slipped and slid down close to half of a flight on my butt. Ouch. So now it hurts when I sit down. Not cool.

Anyway... being back in the City is nice. I've spent a bit of time trying to catch up with people I haven't seen in a month. Which brings me to a pressing subject: I need to get more friends that are girls. Like, seriously. I've hung out with 3 guys in the last 1 1/2 days, and today I was supposed to hang out with 2 other guys, but one never txted me back (and he was the one who suggested we hang out -- wth) and the other should be getting off of work quite soon.

Another thing about guys: I've put myself on a 2-month boy sabbatical, since I have too much to think about right now, and members of the opposite sex aren't making my life any easier. As much as I hate to make gross generalizations, boys are stupid. Well, some boys. Right now, I'm fine with boy friends, but not boyfriends. Actually, I don't think that any of the stupid boys I'm talking about would even want to get that far into a relationship. They're looking for something else that I'm most definitely NOT going to give them. I saw Sticky yesterday for lunch, and when I told him about my situation, he said that I should get a bat so I can fend the stupid boys off. I did consider this as an option for a bit, but then decided that that mode of self-protection would be a bit more violent than I intend to be. (I obviously don't include Sticky in that group of "stupid boys.") So, until March or so, no stupid boys trying to get with me. Maybe they'll get the hint and leave me alone after that, too. I can only hope. But then again, they're stupid boys so they may not be able to read between the lines.

Hm... More updates? Michelle Obama's dress at the Inaugural Ball was atrocious. I think it's nice that she supports up-and-coming young designers of color, but in all honesty, that dress was just... blech. Like those little poofy things all over it (were those flowers?) that were really bad. And then the strap just did nothing. If the strap wasn't there, it might've been ok-ish. Then again, the shape of the dress made her body look almost completely cylindrical.

So, this semester, my schedule is a bit more organized, since I start at 11 on Monday and at 9:30 Tuesday thru Thursday, and I end at about 5 Monday thru Thursday. I'm really excited to be taking French this semester, except I've definitely lost a few things in the 6 months it's been since I was last dans une classe de français. For all of you AHS Frenchies out there, it was so funny because we went over être verbs in class last week, but the prof went over them in terms of a house. I don't know why, but that method never worked for me -- I always preferred the DR & MRS P. VANDERTRAMP thing. But oh my goodness, some of the other students in the class... I remember one girl said something to the extent of "j'ai apprendre." I was a bit shocked. Well, enough of that.

That's pretty much the only class I'm super duper excited about. The rest of them I'm not too keen on, but whatever. I'm most def not excited to do the crapload of reading I have to do for my classes. Oh well. More later... possibly.

Ok, so since I haven't written in a while, I suppose I'll make a list of things that I need to write about (since I'm definitely not going to write about everything now):
1. Hallowe'en
2. Mr. Philippines
3. Emotional Roller Coaster
4. Elections
5. Conferences
6. Good Samaritans and a Lost Kid

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But for now, a short story about what just happened:
My roommate and I heard some banging noises and she went to go see who it was to ask them to stop. She went to all the rooms around where we are (upstairs, downstairs, and on our floor), but she couldn't find anyone making the noise. She got really freaked out and started talking about ghosts, and then I started to get a little freaked out. Then we heard what sounded like screaming outside.  She started talking about how the park across the street was built on top of a Native American burial ground (which it was), and the French and Indian War, and how she disrespected the spirits by being Pocahontas for Hallowe'en. It was silent and I was like, "At least it's quiet now."

She was like, "Silence is usually the worst." And then we heard the elevator ding.

I said, "I never thought I'd be so glad to hear a modern sound."

Then she started making a really creepy face and said, "Diiiiing................ Diiiiing................... Diiiiiiiiiing!"

She tried to call "Javier/Carlos/Pablo" (her bf; when we refer to him, we actually say at least 5 more names) and the call got cut off twice.

So then she freaked herself out and I was like, "You know what? let's go to the guys' room across the hall." We did and they calmed us/her down. Javier/Carlos/Pablo called her back from his home phone while we were in the guys' room, but the call cut out again. We tried to calm down and went into our own room and put all the lights on. I put on some Frank Sinatra music, but then I had to go get my laundry in the basement. So I left my roommate here, with the Frank Sinatra music, and when I came back, she was asleep.

Note: If you haven't noticed by now, I don't use people's actual names in this blog. ^_^ Just thought I'd let you know.

Name Assignments for this episode:
Connie = girl down the hall
Josh = dude I met at the ACLU-NYU thing, who is me, except a white guy from Oregon
B-rad = guy I've been seeing... kinda. It's one of those relationships when you start out as friends and then... you know.

ANYWAY, enough about that. On with the story!

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This morning, I try to find someone who will get rid of my little friend in the sink, because I don't want to be in the same room as something icky like a cockroach. So i knock on the door for the guys across the hall. Nobody answers. I call 3 of them, and still no answer. Then I knock on the guys' room on the other end of the hall; no answer. I even knock on my RA's door, and still no answer. I go back to my room and call my RA, and tell her the story. She's like, "Omg I'm SO sorry you had to deal with that. I really can't help you with anything has to do with bugs, but I can try to find someone who will."

She calls me back a few minutes later to tell me Connie is coming up to my room. "Connie?" I ask. She says, "Yeah, from our floor." And then I realize who she's talking about. My roommate and I have not had very positive encounters with Connie. The encounters have been so "not positive" that we occasionally refer to her as "Pretentious Bitch."

I waited for a minute or two, until Connie came to the room. She was actually really nice about being able to help me and whatnot. Needless to say, I was quite surprised. She asked me if I was ok, and I told her that I've stopped hyperventilating, so yes I'm ok. Luckily she's not afraid of bugs, so she picked it up with a plastic bag and flushed it down the toilet. I immediately felt relieved, and she told me that if there are any bugs again, I can go get her. I don't think I'll be calling her "Pretentious Bitch" too much any more. (Unless we change her nickname to "Fearless Pretentious Bitch.")

Anyway, I spent another 15 minutes or so cleaning out (i.e. removing bug-gut residue and an antenna) and disinfecting the sink before I took a shower. Met up with Josh afterward, had lunch, napped in Union Square on the grass. I went back to my dorm, met up with B-rad, walked to the Apple store since he had something for his iPhone that got recalled... I came back to my room to sleep (since I only got 5 hours of sleep last night, because I was freaking out about that stupid cockroach), and that's exactly what I'll do once I get off the comp.

I've found my phobia, and it's cockroaches. I've never had to deal with anything that's actually made me hyperventilate and start shaking and crying like that. WTH. Whatevs... I'll live.

Dang... It's already been 3 1/2 weeks since I've last blogged. haha Sorry everyone! ^_^; Quick updates!

Lovin' the city. Still getting used to the people. ^_^; Going through slight hyphy withdrawal. What is there to say? I've joined a few clubs, saw the president of Israel talk, went to an Italian festival, saw two French movies, and had a totally kickass birthday. I'll write about my birthday later, since I'm off to watch the VP debates!