Halfway through spring break '09!

I LOVE SPRING BREAK.
it's kinda weird though, this year being my first year not going on a spring break mission trip. but i like it. it's nice to just take a break and not have to wake up at the break of dawn everyday :)
so monday we got to Georgia Tech!! it's a freakin awesome place. sooo jealous cuz it's so much nicer than Taylor! their campus is like probably 10 times bigger than ours. haha. but it's a Tech school.. so mostly nerdy engineering people around here. but they have an AWESOME student center..complete with a bowling alley and a gaming place! sigh. i wish Taylor was nicer. but then again, the people here are kinda... lonesome. so it made me really appreciate Taylor's community. cuz we're such a small school, everyone's so nice and we all know each other (mostly).

so sung ah and i are staying at jo's apartment. which is so dirtyyy!! haha. we're planning to help clean it for her :) we met some of her friends too. they're really cool and interesting! and nice! they bring us around to nice places to eat :)
went to see the World of Coca-Cola!! it was so fascinating! there was the entire history of Coke.. all the cool advertisements over the years. i entertained the thought of working for Coke for a second, before i realized my mom would chastise me for working for the devil. haha. and they had a room full of free-flow Coke products from all over the world!!! we drank until we were totally bloated and feeling gross, and now i never wanna see another can of soda ever again.

ystdy we went shopping!! at this place called Lennox Square mall. took the subway there. but there was nothing much to buy. oh well. save money! going to the Georgia Aquarium later. the largest aquarium in the world! the weather's been really nice lately. not too warm but not too cold either. although it rained today.
but yeah! can't believe it's thursday already. time flies.

so anw i will probably be doing an internship from after school gets out until July 18th... in New York City. not totally confirmed yet, but should be. hopefully.

Oh how I love traveling experiences...

being sarcastic there.

so... guess what happened? Northwest flight got delayed, due to some technical problems, not surprised at all. they put me on another route.. from Indianapolis to Minneapolis to Atlanta. finally got here at 8pm after traveling for one whole day when Georgia's only like 2 hours away from Indiana. waited at the baggage claim... and of course! no luggage in sight. not surprised at all. both of us didn't get out luggage until today.
once again i say, I'LL NEVER FLY DELTA AGAIN!
but of course i will. cuz the other american airlines are even worse.

on the plus side, they put me on FIRST CLASS for both flights! i'm really blessed. although i must say, i really don't make full use of being in first class. i just sleep through it. so i only enjoy the nice, huge space i have. not really any of the drinks/snacks or anything. traveling is just too tiring.

Anw, on friday we went to mimi's house in Indy..was so nice to meet her family! they have 5 girls, all adopted from different places in the world..so their family is a mix of caucasian, korean, indian, and hispanic. isn't that so cool? i wanna have that too. adopt kids from all over the world (aka Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt) so i don't have to have my own. haha. it'll make for a really interesting diverse family :)

and today! the crazy guy at the front desk (we're staying at Courtyard Marriott till mon.. it's a pretty crappy place, but i'm just glad to have a place to stay so i'm not complaining) told us we had to leave the hotel at 7.15am to get to Six Flags by 10.30am, when they opened.
SO. we got up at freakin 6am! i couldn't sleep too..so i got no sleep. and we took the subway..was pretty easy to navigate. we were like the only asians there. heh. black people are everywhere! was really interesting to observe. they're really free in their expression. one guy was singing in the subway, another was dancing, another was preaching to anyone who'd listen! so interesting right?? and some of them tried to randomly talk to us. fascinating :)

so we got to the Six Flags subway stop at 8am!!! 2 and a half hours before it even opens!!! and we found this awesome, weird toilet. it looked like a metallic box. and u press a button and the door slides open. looks cool outside, but inside is like any other toilet u'd find at a gas station in malaysia. and u have to press a button and they give u like 2 squares of toilet paper. so of course i pressed the button 50 times. anw everything in there was automated. was pretty futuristic.
and then we rode on the subway to random stops until 10am, then SIX FLAGS!!!!

it was awesome. i LOVED every single ride. there were rollercoasters galore. it was like my dream come true!!!! soooo many crazy rollercoasters of all kinds!!! there was the Georgia Scorcher where we had to STAND UP the entire time!! coolness. and Superman, where we were lying face down, with only one little seatbelt thingy holding us from falling to the ground. was absolutely awesome. sung ah and i got on so many rollercoasters one after each other that after a while we got dizzy. heh. we finished all the thrill rides! there was hardly any lines too! we got done by like 5pm. and now my throat hurts from screaming so much. but yeah. i love six flags. but then again, it's no Disneyworld. Disney is still the best :)

YAY for going to Georgia Tech tomorrow!!

SPRING BREAK '09 YEAH!

it's officially spring break. i'm leaving in 10 mins but i thought i'd update quick.
Sung Ah and I are going to Atlanta, Georgia!!!! so freakin excited. only been there once before, last year on spring break.. but it was on the way to Miami so we only stopped by one day. but still. they have gooood southern food :)
And we're gonna stay with my childhood bestie, Jo!! at Georgia Tech!! yeah for real college life!! haha. going to Six Flags also!! it's an awesome THEME PARK!! and everyone knows I LOVE ROLLERCOASTERS and ADRENALINE RUSHES!!!

YAY!!!!!!
and we're taking 2 extra days off. haha. cuz it was cheaper (mileage-wise) to fly back on tues than sun. yay for 10 days of spring break!!!!! homework? who cares about homework!!!
man this week crawled by excruciatingly. but the day is finally here thank God. :)
pray for journey mercy as we fly on saturday. leaving at 1pm and only get there at 8pm! long layover. sigh.
and we're staying at a hotel 1st two nights.
so pray for protection too!
:)

THE WAIT IS KILLING ME

aaaaarrrggghhhh.

I HATE WAITING.
especially for something i really, really, REALLY WANT.
oh God, please let me get it. please. please. please.

i'll know if i get into the Fall 2009 LA program by April 17.
i'll know about an internship in 7 days.
omg why is time passing so slowly????
my stomach is twisting into knots. there are 9,999 butterflies fluttering around in my stomach now.
OK not stressing out.
think about other things!

And... please pray i'll get it!!! or whatever God has in plan for me.

Going about life...

I guess nothing much went on this week. It wasn't a very happening week. I tried racking my brain to think of what to say... but came up with nothing exciting. so you can stop reading at this point if u want to. haha.

This week was....


Yup. Sex and the cornfields. Sessions, talks and panels about sexuality. Weird, huh. You'd think that we'd be done with all this don't-have-sex-it-leads-to-pregnancy-and-abortion talks by now. At first I thought it was gonna be really lame and cliche, sprouting the usual 'the Bible says it's wrong to have sex before marriage,' blah blah blahhh. but then i went to the women's panel, where they were surprisingly VERY open about discussing every aspect of sex. and it was really interesting! haha. i actually learned a lot. and it sparked off many interesting conversations too.

one Christian friend actually asked me if it was really morally wrong to have sex before marriage. i was utterly horrified. i think the media has desensitized us to the true meaning of sex. it's glamorized it and made it so ordinary that no one thinks it's a big deal anymore. and that's really sad.

This week I kept oversleeping. don't know why! but i missed classes cuz i think i subconsciously heard my alarm, reached out and turned it off, and went back to sleep. and by the time i woke up for real, class was almost over. so weird!

went to Blockbuster and rented a random chinese movie entitled 'Protege.'

it was, without a doubt, THE most depressing HK movie ever. all about drugs, cops going undercover in the gangs, violence and death. doesn't that ring a bell? infernal affairs, anyone? ugh. really creepy too. totally regret renting it. at least i didn't buy it thank God. obviously the only reason i glanced at it a second time was daniel wu. his hotness was beckoning me. hahaha.

can't wait for double roomie date tomorrow! :)

Would you rather...

Have eyebrows that go all around your eyes in one long line (and cannot be shaved)?
Or have legs that are stuck together mermaid-style and end with one foot?

Tough questions! hahaha.

Me and some girls from my wing have been playing that game and other random questions at Payne's. was SO funny. but oh, chocolate milkshake at 11pm.... so bad!! plus didn't get any hw done...spent the entire day sleeping after getting back from korean church. didn't get much sleep cuz i was out late last night :) plus it was Daylight savings time, which means our clocks go forward 1 hour... so now we're 12hours behind home instead of 13!
anw, this semester has been the most fun ever! got to de-stress from this crazyyy week.

And we settled our housing issues. talked it over calmly. kind of. i was calm, anyway. So... looks like we'll be living in crappy apartments next year! Oh joy. but i won't be here for the fall (hopefully) cuz i'll be in LA.. can't believe i'm graduating in ONE YEAR++!! can't wait to get out of here and live in the REAL WORLD!!

Ok. something that I-R-K-S me is... this whole idea, concept, theory, whatever you wanna call it, of 'community' here at school. i feel like we always emphasize how close-knit everyone is on campus, and we talk about being open and vulnerable and honest, and about building close relationships... and in some ways we really are. like, i love being here. i love the friendships i have here. but i just dislike the fact that there are some... sensitive topics that we all shirk away from. stuff that people do that no one dares to talk about because we're all supposed to be goody-two-shoes Christians.

And it's such a misconception because no one's perfect! we all fall, we all make mistakes, we all drift away from the path sometimes.. and i feel like there's no good in covering it up, pretending to the world (and the university's donors) that we're leading perfect, upright lives here. i hope i don't sound cynical, because i'm not. i'm just annoyed.
I just wish there was more openness and opportunities to be genuinely honest about stuff, even stuff that makes us look bad, without being judged and thrown to the fire. And i wish i could spell out exactly what i'm talking about, but those same rules that ostensibly protect us prevent me from being completely honest.




What irony.

GUESS WHAT???

I GOT TAYLOR-APPROVED to study abroad in LA IN THE FALL!!!!!! (still have to wait for approval from the program itself, but should be able to get in!!! continue praying)
AM SO EXCITED. one step closer to going to california and getting out of upland!!
i actually can't believe i did this. applied and went for an interview in just 4 days. haha. i know i don't have much experience with film production and all, and it's probably gonna be intimidating, surrounded by all the wanna-be genius film producers... but hey, i think it'll be a challenging but awesome learning experience :)
so that's the good news.


here's the bad.

no one should EVER bake cakes at 3am when they have to get up at 7am to prepare for a presentation. NEVER. i was so out of it, i had a headache and felt nauseous the entire day!! or maybe that was because we ate the double fudge chocolate cake at 8am. heh. the birthday boy was thankful though, so that made it worth it :) and i went to bed at like 10pm. the earliest EVER.

so... our presentation... was... uneventful, to say the least. The ENTIRE class was OUTRAGED by the end of our presentation. not at us (mostly), but at what we were saying. i've never seen so many angry faces staring at me. i've never been so intimidated. they questioned us for like an hour! my professor looked so red i thought she was gonna cry!

so background:
it was about Christians and film, and we were playing the devil's advocate. we played an advertising agency trying to convince film studios to market to Christians because they're a gullible niche market that will take in just about anything Christian-y.
Ever since The Passion of the Christ, Hollywood has been trying its best to put their hands into Christians' pockets.
Point in case: Movies like Fireproof, Left Behind and Facing the Giants.
All pretty bad films quality-wise (meaning very cheesy and just badly produced. made up of volunteer actors and produced on very low budget), but great in the sense that many people's lives have been touched through these movies.

To me, I have no problem with badly produced, cheesy films. heck, i watch them all the time. (Example: high school musical, camp rock, bring it on 1,2,3... the list goes on) And i definitely have no problem with cheesy Christian films if they result in lives being saved. 'Cause like the Bible says, every life is precious, and if someone is touched by a movie, I'm all for it.

i mean, my own church, FCBC, did this too. Ps Khong produced those lame movies that he acted in, and they were pretty bad. but i know people were touched by it, and i think that's a good thing! i mean, some people are called to do this, and that's great! but the people in my class, being film production majors, CANNOT stand bad quality films. they say that as Christians, we're called to produce excellence in everything we do. and all these lame Christian movies are just giving us a bad name. but still.. they have improved over time. i mean, we can't all be outstanding film producers from the start.

This wasn't the worst part. the worst part was, through our research, we found all these awful Hollywood marketing to Christians... and Christians actually falling for it. Car companies like Chrysler and Chevrolet would pay pastors or give them free new cars just to mention their cars in their sermons or display the cars in the church parking lot.
There are product placements even in the pews of churches! some companies even put on free worship events and pay the bands just to mention their product.
I mean, there's a line... and this just crosses it. do these people not know they're being marketed to? do they not know they're falling into the trap of consumerism and capitalism? are they not aware they're being USED?
i just can't understand.

Most of this happens in megachurches. which made me think of FCBC, my megachurch at home. but i'm pretty 100% sure Ps Khong does NOT do product placement or any of that crap. so maybe this is just an American thing. i've noticed (the more contemporary) pastors here do love to show clips from movies and base their sermons on that. i mean, there's nothing wrong with that... but when they start accepting money for product placement and all... that's just so wrong.

so yeah. the entire class was mad. mostly about the marketing part. cuz Hollywood has found the Christian demographic to be a very gullible and accepting one, and they're pumping as much money as they can out of us. it's all really depressing.

Even more depressing... turns out i'm like the only one excited that i'm studying abroad in the fall. cuz i was supposed to live with 3 other girls in the off-campus apartments senior year, but we didn't get in. so i applied to study abroad. and now they have a problem cuz it's only 3 of them. and i feel really really really bad cuz i guess i did ditch them. i didn't really think about it. i just saw it as God giving me a second chance to apply for study abroad. so now... they have to either find a house, or live in other crappy apartments... both of which aren't very nice choices. and also, two of us don't really feel like living with the other two anymore... but u know how i am. i'm very non-confrontational. and some sort of a people-pleaser.

i don't know what to do.

And there's been a lot of girl drama recently.
And of course i'm caught in the middle.
what else is new.
this is all very draining.

Why am i still awake

I don't know. I feel like I should write a poem entitled "Why Am I Still Awake".

Why am I still awake
Oh it's a cake I'm about to bake
For a friend who's birthday is tomorrow
And I don't want him to feel low

That's my feeble attempt to come up with something creative when my sleepy eyes are half-open. And I have a group presentation worth 25% of my grade tomorrow. which we spent the whole evening preparing for. and it was kinda fun. we were mostly goofing around.
But anyway, it's one of the guys in our group's birthday tomorrow, and he'll prob have a sucky day since we're meeting at freakin 8am to run through our presentation, which is at 3pm. Sooo... we decided to bake him a cake. aren't we all nice and sweet and fluffy. even at 3am. it's a double fudge dark chocolate moist deluxe cake (from cake mix, of course). doesn't that just make your mouth water??
here's a pic i found. only it's not the exact one. but close enough :)


Anw my interview went really well!!! but i'll only know if i get Taylor-approved next week. sigh so slow. i wanna know NOW! i really hope i get it. please please please let me get in. i'm about ready to get out of this tiny little campus and experience 'the real world!' only i wish i had more experience with film production, instead of just writing, writing and more writing.


YAY the cake is done! and it looks good! who knew i could bake. (cake mix is still baking, ok. it involves mixing in water, oil and eggs. totally not easy. haha)

Now or never

My script 'The Long Road Home' is officially submitted to the Page Awards!!!! kinda nervous about that. but we'll only know if we got into the quarter finals in july, semi finals in aug... etc. so late. i wanna know NOW! well actually i just wanna see their feedback. so i can improve. and write better scripts!!!

And I did homework the entire day today. from the time i woke up at 1 till 8, when i made cookies and had a girl party where we watched High School Musical 3!! it was awesome. although hannah didn't let me sing along with the songs (that i painstakingly memorized. ahaha).


~we're all in this togetherrrr~

Oh those lucky rich and famous kids. haha

random: been listening to old songs from the '90s. backstreet boys, 'nsync, m2m, boyzone, savage garden... going down memory lane.

Back to hw! Actually, not really. Just filling out applications for study abroad in the fall. My interview's tomorrow!! at 3pm!! pray that God's favor will be upon me and the interview will go great and i'll be Taylor-approved to go study in LA!!!! :)
(This is lame, but i just realized LA is in california. I'LL BE IN CALIFORNIA FOR THE FALL!!! coolness)

Honestly tell me that it's.. over

Me,cartoon and sung ah. I don't know what i was trying to do. haha

:)

Sungah wanted to 'flash' people. haha.

oh fun times.

we saw a live band playing. had no idea who they were, but their songs were cool. yeah mosh pit!

oh another fun night :)

I really wish i could say that next week's going to be better. or even that i'm semi-prepared to face another week of busyness. but nope. it's the weekend, and i didn't get anything (academic) accomplished so far. although i did catch up on some much needed sleep. i was like a total zombie on thurs and fri. less than 6hours of sleep every night for one week can do that to you.

so another issue of the Echo is done, and another one is coming up. oh joy. but at least i'm not writing any articles this week, thank God. still trying to apply for internships. got to interview some really cool people for my job hunt article - about students facing the job/internship search process. talked to some authors of books that help people prepare themselves for jobs.. talked to the VP of an internship program (University of Dreams).. got some good perspective on the current job market.

OH. and AWESOME NEWS: i was in a scriptwriting class last semester, and i wrote a script for my final project, about two brothers who have an estranged relationship, but the death of their parents and an unexpected twist of fate brings them together again. so i guess my professor really liked it, cuz she's submitting it in an international screenwriting contest!!! how cool is that!! i'm so excited that she thought my puny little script has some potential!! i'm not really expecting to win, since it's my first time attempting a script and all, but i'm just so... shocked. and honored. that she thinks it's good enough to enter a competition!! and a group from the Digital Filmmaking class wants to PRODUCE MY SCRIPT!!! they really liked it!! so they're gonna make it into a short film!!!! OMG. i'm so excited. am gonna work with them to perfect my script :)

i just can't get over it. Me?? a scriptwriter??? YES I TOTALLY WANNA DO THIS AS A CAREER! haha. i really enjoy creative writing so much more than reporting the boring news. it's alot more work, but I LOVE IT. i just do. it's fun creating something out of nothing. news is just like.. oh.. this happened.. this person said this.. blah blah blah. but writing scripts for movies and tv shows?? you really get to impact tons of people!! of course it's always hard to avoid the cheesy God-is-love-and-you-should-become-a-Christian kind of story, but i think films are a great way to reach out to the masses for Christ :)

so yesterday i got a little jealous. looking at all the art shows that the seniors put on.. i always wished i could draw. it'll be so fun! to draw faces and stuff. but oh well. vivienne had an AWESOME show. she etched/waxed/painted these egg shells so intricately with tons of detail! there were emu eggs, ostrich eggs, duck eggs, goose eggs, and they were all painted so beautifully. it must've taken SO long to do. and one girl did a magazine photo shoot spread. SO COOL.
AND i learned how to play poker!!! some guys taught me. and i won too!! but they kept saying it was beginner's luck. i had so many chips by the end of the game. haha.

i really must learn to be more assertive. i keep saying yes to people even though sometimes i wanna say no. but the thing with me is, i'm so easygoing that even when i say yes when i wanna say no, i actually don't mind that much saying yes. even though i would rather say no. does that make sense? haha. so we watched 'A beautiful mind' last night till like 2am even though all i wanted to do was go back to my room and sleep. but it was cool. i think having schizophrenia is the worst thing that can ever happen to a person. alzheimer's is the second worst.

so today was Girls' Night Out. hosted by the MK guys. they were so sweet. it was supposed to be a surprise..they told us to dress up and they'd take us to a secret location, but i totally knew it was gonna be at the nearby church. cuz that's what we did for them. and it's more convenient too. with so many people. haha. but it was fun! they made food for us, served us, gave us entertainment.. i dunno why but i got crowned Queen of the night. ahahaha. gave me my own tiara and everything. and a free bubble blower thing. and then i learned how to waltz! and we had a mini dance partayyy!!! awesomeness.
but back to the real world. tomorrow i'll be doing hw all day. SIGH.