Ron's Journal

12:14am: interpersonal communication
My sister came into town this past weekend to visit me in the Bay Area. This is the third time that she's come here - the first time for her was a road trip with some friends (which had plenty of drama), and the second time was a trip that she made with my mom. So, this trip is the first time that she's come down alone.

I think there's a significantly different dynamic when I'm alone with my sister than with "mixed company." With her, I feel more open to talk about what's been going on in my life, and the perks and pitfalls that lie within. I think she's also much more frank and honest with me about her life - in particular, the things that make her happy or stressed out. In addition, I'm much much more talkative with her alone than, say, her with my mom - she's often said at the end of one of our conversations that her brain hurts, because I have a tendency to ask serious, thoughtful questions. She takes after her mother very well since my mom says the same thing when I'm able to corner her and start a conversation. I don't do that very often at all when I'm in mixed company, and I still haven't been able to figure out why.

The different dynamic that I've mentioned could probably be generalized to whenever I spend time alone with one person versus that person as a part of a group of friends. I've made that observation quite recently - last night, in fact, was one of said occasions. I was chatting with a friend online, and when he invited one of his friends over to the chatroom, my level of conversation activity dropped down to nearly zero. In retrospect, this doesn't really seem to make sense - this is the Internet, after all, and so I shouldn't be tied down by any barriers that would have arisen if I were in mixed company in person. Said communication barriers arise often because I'm deaf and usually the third person is hearing and doesn't know sign language much less how to deal with deaf people - so we end up being (needlessly) intimidated by each other. In any case, these barriers don't exist in an Internet chat room, and I found myself unable to really say anything meaningful while the two friends were chatting up a storm. This experience is not unique by any means - it has happened to a group of friends who want to play a game together (usually Scrabble or another word game) - they are fine chatting back and forth, but I say almost nothing.

This kind of inability to contribute to a group conversation isn't limited to hearing groups either - I've also found myself unable to participate in conversations with several deaf people. I just end up watching them talk with each other (which is something that I like to do anyway - I love just being able to listen to people talk). But if I can talk with them one-on-one - hearing or deaf, signing or not, stranger or not - I don't really have a problem (?) making conversation with them. This phenomenon has puzzled me for a while now - I don't think it's because I'm necessarily shy, though. I mean, if I want to talk with the person, I will find a way to do it. But if they're in a group, that's a different story.

In a similar vein, I have had several occasions when I've needed to "network" with different people. My problem is not approaching people, but coming up with things to talk about with them. For instance, when I visited SJSU a couple of weeks ago, I sat down with a very nice woman, but I couldn't think of anything meaningful to talk about with her (so we ended up talking about the history of the building that we were in). I don't know if it's an inherent or acquired skill to be able to make conversation with complete strangers, but I don't have that skill yet. I wonder how I could acquire it, though. I also seem to have the problem of running out of things to talk about - when I ask a question and a person gives a short answer that I can't work from, then I move on to another topic .... and then I run out of things to talk about. Then there's an awkward silence. But I know people who have the gift of being able to make conversation, and I'm envious of them. Again, is this an acquired or inherent skill?

I have a long way to go before I can become a socialite, it seems!

6:24pm: Last saturday night's party
I went to my advisor's house recently for a graduation party for one of my (soon-to-be) ex-labmates. It is such a beautiful, warm, and inviting house with hardwood floors, a gorgeous kitchen + isle with (I think) granite counters, and a humongous pineapple guava tree in the backyard. There are some Chinese charcoal tapestries on the walls that I really enjoy looking at too (in fact, I asked William if he would get me one of those when he went to China but he "doesn't remember me asking him"). I think it is very clear that Bob and his wife take a lot of pride in their home and it definitely shows - it's the kind of house that I would want to own in the future.

Bob and his wife cooked dinner for us that night though I don't know to what extent Bob actually did any cooking apart from grilling meat. We had two kinds of salads, marinated beef and chicken cooked on the grill, a rice pilaf (unfortunately with mushrooms), couscous, and bread. For dessert, there were three things - a chocolate cheesecake, a really attractive fruit tart, and apple pie - we also had a taste of the pineapple guava from the tree in their backyard. The food was excellent - I've always been a fan of Winnie's cooking - but I'm surprised that they cooked so much food for ... 15, maybe 20 people?

It was also really nice to be able to sit down and have a conversation with a couple of people that I was interested in getting to know better. This was the first time that I'd really chatted with the outgoing lab member even though we'd been in the lab together for four years. In addition, I got to talk with the German postdoc, which was something that I'd wanted to do for a long time - he seems like such an interesting person to get to know. And I also got to know Bob a little bit better. This was an excellent party because of the opportunity that I had to socialize with the people in my lab. There was another coworker that I wanted to get to know better also, but he didn't attend the party for some reason so that was disappointing.

This was the fourth time in over four years that I've been able to attend a Waymouth group gathering. We don't have very many group-wide social events that I know of - maybe two or three times a year? Most of the gatherings that I've attended have been Christmas parties - I've not been able to go to any graduation parties until the most recent one because they're always organized with very little notice and I've usually already planned on being out of town that day. I went on a group ski trip even though I've never skied and every other member of the group happened to be able to ski - I ended up staying in the lodge with Winnie and her kids for most of the trip so that wasn't very fun. Also, every year, there is a group camping trip up in Yosemite, but I've never attended because (1) I've never camped in my life so I possess absolutely no camping equipment and (2) I'm not too crazy about "roughing it" with people I don't really know - I'd rather have my first camping experience with people that I'm more comfortable with being around. So opportunities like the party that was held last weekend was something that I jumped on, and I'm glad I did it.

I'm already looking forward to the Christmas party this year, and I'm hoping that the party will be planned further in advance so that I can be sure to make arrangements to attend. We shall see....

10:12am: My fifth year in graduate school: the beginning
I've already written about what happened during the past academic year. Now I'm hopefully going to continue to write about this fifth academic year in a semi-regular fashion.

There are two pieces of news that have taken place this year. The first is that I won a fellowship for increasing the amount of diversity in academia. Basically, the goal of the fellowship is to train the fellows so that they are better prepared to seek out jobs in academia (and hence diversify the population in academia). I am the only person of the twelve that have been selected that is (obviously) disabled in some way - the other fellows are women, LGBT, or of an ethnic minority, or a combination of any of them. Currently, we are taking a course that discusses the framework of the roles and responsbilities of faculty members in academia (teaching, learning, and service, among other things). There are two other seminar courses this year that I'll be taking in future quarters, but right now, it is all very interesting.

The funny thing is that there is only one true humanities fellow (English) - the rest of us are social sciences or natural sciences students (with two in chemistry!) I think it's unfortunate that there aren't more humanities fellows - I would love to find out how their doctorate programs look since I only have a very vague idea of what students do in these fields. Maybe this imbalance in fields (6 natural sciences, 4 social sciences, 1 engineering, and 1 humanities) reflects the relative number of applicants that the fellowship office received?

The second piece of news is that I broke my ankle. I was making a left turn from near the volleyball court in the Biology area into Serra Mall. The turn was a little bit hairy, so I decided to stop and catch my balance. I stepped out my right foot, and then ... the bicycle may or may not have hit the curb (I don't know), but I toppled over with my bike, and landed on my ankle. I should probably add that William (who is taller than me) had ridden my bike the night before and, because of his height, he had raised the bicycle seat and neglected to lower it. My theory is that this caused me to step out further than I would normally need to, and further caused me to lose my balance (I could not touch the ground with my feet when I was sitting on my bike - I needed to lean with the bike to have my feet make contact with the ground). So, long story short, an ambulance was called, and I was whisked to the emergency room - I got a temporary splint, and five days later, I got a orthopedic boot. I can honestly say that my arms, back, left leg, and abs are getting really buff because I am getting a serious workout every day moving around in crutches.

Since I cannot stand on my own without crutches (and consequently, cannot lift anything really), I have been biding my time in a nice office next to my advisor's office (designated apparently for his administrative assistant, but she never uses it). I've been reading a lot of papers, and my advisor has asked me to do some DFT calculations to give some theoretical backbone to my work. But first, I need to learn how to do this, and it seems to be a relatively steep learning curve at the beginning. Hope it all works out.

11:59pm: My fourth year in graduate school, part 3
This post should hopefully wrap up the things that have gone on in my life during the past academic year.

( Part 3 )

All of these events took place during the past year, and I have no regrets. They all had an effect on my life, and I can honestly say that I have changed to become a different person than the man I was one year ago. I don't know what kinds of things will happen this year, but I look forward to seeing how this year will unfold as I continue with my fifth year of graduate school.

12:34am: My fourth year in graduate school, part 2
My most recent post covered various things in my chemistry world. This post will cover some other parts of my life that took place during the last academic year.

( Part 2 )

I'll wrap up this series of posts shortly.

8:21pm: My fourth year in graduate school
Two weeks ago, I started my fifth year in graduate school. Some changes have taken place - some good, and others that have not been so good.

( Some musings )

12:29am: Las Vegas
So, William and I are going to Las Vegas during part of our spring break - that's March 22 to 27, for those of you who are on a semester system (which is foreign to me as I've always had a quarter-based college schedule). We're driving there since we figure we will need a car to get around Las Vegas if we want to get off the Strip.

Is there anything that you recommend us to do while we're there? William and I only have a vague sense of what we could do while we're there, but no plans are set at all (other than the hotel where we're staying).

11:48pm: I haven't posted in this journal in a long time, so I thought I'd make some general remarks about my life.

William and I are doing well. We moved together last June in this pretty comfy (but also pretty run down) apartment in Escondido Village (the graduate housing cluster). We had some trouble with housing at the beginning of the summer because I was dumb enough to make my housing request through the disability resource center here so we were limited to only the ADA-accessible apartments. This meant no kitchen space for us (for wheelchair accessibility) and a weirdly designed bathroom. We've made do with these conditions and have made this apartment our home. We really should decorate these walls as they are as bare as they can get, though.

My chemistry research is still pretty stillborn, though we have taken on a new direction. I haven't really done much this quarter since I've been involved in my real passion at Stanford - teaching. I am currently head TAing for the third quarter of organic chemistry for the third time, and this has been the busiest TAing experience I've had. Since there was a high enrollment of students, I had to open two new sections that I have been enjoying leading - I miss being a normal TA (though I do not miss the lower pay that I would be earning if I had this position). We have a good group of TAs this time, which I'm grateful for - there are two very bright graduate students who seem to care about the students' learning the material, and there is an undergraduate TA who I've heard is doing a good job (even though he mysteriously disappears right after every lecture). Believe it or not, I actually miss working with Professor Trost - his style of course administration is much more in tune with mine compared to the current professor of the course.

I am not dumb enough to be TAing an ASL class this year - I don't think I'll ever do that again. What I am, however, being dumb enough to do is taking a biology class this year at Foothill College. I want to keep my future options open and one of these options requires that I take a full year of biology plus labs, which I am currently doing. The class I'm taking now is pretty much identical to the class that I took in high school - the textbook is even by the same author (though the book I have now is a more current edition). The class is so watered down, though - the biochemistry that we are discussing currently is a very, very hollowed out version of the chemistry that was discussed in Stanford's biocore last year, and the cell biology this time around is so unbelievably simple compared to the material that Cyert taught last year. In their defense, though, the biocore at Stanford is reputed to be among the most difficult biology sequences in the country.

At this point, I am not sure what I want to do with my life in the future. I think I'll devote this topic to a separate post at a later date, though.

1:17am: There was a party tonight that took place in Terra - which is the (unofficial) gay house. There was basically a 1980s theme and people did a great job dressing up for the occasion - fashion disasters galore. The sort of costumes that people wore - that whole let-themselves-loose kind of costume - definitely brought out the best qualities to a person's appearance (that is, quite a few people were smoking hot in their costumes). But I am not writing about that. I am writing about something that happened that is (somewhat) unrelated to the party.

I was sitting in the sitting room, where the lights were off except for a few dim lights scattered about the room. I sat there for about an hour, just contemplating different things. I started to think about some sad thoughts, so that put me in a little bit of a funk while I was sitting there. Suddenly, a person came into the room, approached me, and gave me one of the best hugs I have had in a long, long, long time. He then looked at me in the eyes and asked if I wanted to go on the dance floor and dance with him - not in a pickup sort of sense, but in a genuine I-want-to-cheer-you-up kind of way. I was not in the mood for dancing, so I declined his offer, even after he asked me a couple more times. He then got up and told me that, if I wanted to dance with him, I could let him know, and then he left the room.

Now, he is not a person that I have actually met, but I know who he is and we've seen each other every once in a long while, but I don't think we've ever introduced ourselves to each other. He seemed to know that I was deaf, though but he could just look that way because the music was really, really loud.

I was completely blown away by the whole thing taking place. I mean, here is a guy who the only thing I know about him is his name, and he seemed to have come over to cheer me up. This kind of thing has never happened to me before. Well, his intentions were definitely successful - I was quite touched by the whole gesture. I am tempted to be cynical and say that someone put him up to it, but I will go ahead and hope for the best - that he did it because he wanted to. This was such a small thing for him to do but it meant so much to me. Such an act of kindness is something I see happen once in a blue moon, and that's what makes these acts so much more precious. I will never forget this night or that man, for that reason.

Edit: after reading this, the event doesn't sound like a lot, but it is really hard to describe what happened within these few minutes.

3:51pm: The RID conference
What a week! 2,500 people attended the RID conference in San Francisco, and completely took over the Mariott and Parc 55 hotels in downtown San Francisco. I met some people from all over the country, learned some mighty useful things in the workshops I took (and earned 2.2 CEUs), and took part in the proceedings of the RID business meeting.

I think the workshop that was most valuable for me was the one on hospital interpreting since it addressed nearly every hospital job that I could think of in the various professions of medicine. Things discussed were basic terminology, what situations would be encountered, and how interpreters could address these situations. The same two medical interpreters also taught a medical terminology class, but that was just a vocabularly building workshop rather than a workshop that actually taught medicinal signs, which was a shame. Still, it was a great taste of the medical world in the eyes of an interpreter.

The workshops that were more obviously appealing for me were the CDI workshops, which also encompassed deaf-blind interpreting. Unfortunately, the level of the audience that the speakers assumed was very basic - and Chris, during the two years in our relationship, had already taught me everything that was taught in the workshop save for hands-on experience. In addition, there was an air of elitism for the CDIs towards the hearing interpreters - we do hire CDIs because they do some things that hearing intepreters are just not as experienced or qualified in, but the CDIs put a negative spin on that positive asset. It just rubbed me the wrong way, and I can't believe that the hearing interpreter that I went to the workshop with (Joseph) took on all of that mudslinging without saying anything.

I have heard that the legal interpreting workshops were excellent this year, but unfortunately, for most of those workshops, I was at a CDI workshop. Booooo.

Aside from the workshops, the proceedings of the various meetings that I attended made me feel more motivated to get involved in RID-related activities. I attended three meetings - one for the BLeGIT section [LGBT members, basically], one for the legal interpreters, and one for the general RID public. The last of the three was conducted in parliamentary format, which was interesting to observe and take part in - I was glad I went, since there was a hot topic this year. Basically, the question was whether certified interpreters who did not get RID certification should obtain voting rights equal to certified RID members - and these certified people would be in a group renamed "credentialed" members. I very much disagree with that idea, and right now, the idea will be submitted to a task force and voted on in the 2009 RID conference in Philadelphia, PA. [I am actually looking forward to going to Philadelphia since I will be 45 minutes west of Adam's hometown - I have known Adam for seven years now, but still haven't met him!]

I haven't decided if I should be a member of the Northern California RID or the Washington state RID. I think I'll go to the NorCRID conference this year and see how it goes. I can't go to the WSRID conference since it is too close to my Washington, DC trip, unfortunately. I'm also looking forward to going to the Region V conference in sunny Sacramento next summer.

Other than that, not much is new with me.

11:13pm: There is a national conference this weekend in San Francisco for interpreters around the world through the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf. The "preconference" and opening ceremony was today, and it was absolutely fantastic. I am extremely excited for the rest of the conference!!! :-D

1:18am: A testament to the noblest dog I have ever known.
MARCH 1994.

The first puppy that the Painter family had was born; six weeks later, I met this Scottish Terrier for the very first time and held him in my 11-year-old hands. Our family named him Bandit not because he looked like a bandit of any kind, but because he simply stole our hearts. He was one tiny puppy - he could stand on all four legs in one hand, and I always had to be careful when getting up from my reclining chair lest the puppy get squished under the footrest.

His favorite toy was this worn-out cotton knot and he enjoyed wrestling with it with another person or dog when he was young. His favorite pastime was digging holes in the flowerbeds - he had quite strong hindlegs and he obviously liked to put them to good use.

Bandit oversaw several changes from his vantage point. We moved to a new, bigger house (with a bigger yard that he could dig holes in). We got, and three years later, lost Clementine (another Scottish Terrier), his first and probably closest companion. Four years after Clementine, we got Isabella and, one and a half years later, Lily May - both Scottish Terriers - that kept Bandit company while he grew old. He lost most of his hearing and sight, and gray hair gradually crept into his once black fur coat. Every night, when my parents would make their way to the bedroom to go to bed, Izzy and Lily would follow along but old Bandit would be napping peacefully - and Izzy or Lily would have to turn around and let Bandit know that it was time for bed - and Bandit would clomp his way down the hallway to the bedroom.

Bandit was truly a gentledog - passive and at times timid. If I touched him to give him a pet, he would jump at the first touch, every time. And he would come to you when he wanted to give you his love, slowly and gently. He was never an "in your face" kind of dog, very much unlike the other four dogs that I've had in my lifetime - he was very much a follower. He was also a strong thumper if I scratched the right places on his body, and after I finished, he would always try to rub that place on the carpet and finish with a big, lumbering roll across his back and a quick shake at the end. Always complacent, he was a loyal dog who had a big heart and a lot of love to give (mostly from the tongue baths that he liked to give with his long tongue, hence his name sign).

And so, on July 21, 2007, Bandit passed away due to kidney failure. It was honestly his time to go - his health had been failing and I think he was ready to move on. My biggest sadness is that I was not there to bid him goodbye and wish him a safe journey to a better place. Nonetheless, Bandit had a happy and largely healthy life, and I am grateful to have had him as my first real pet. When I was living at home, Bandit was always at my side when I slept - at the foot of his bed, likely incessantly grooming his paws or sleeping, and I miss that. I miss him jumping and standing on his rear paws for a second whenever I had a treat for him. And most of all, I miss his tendency to snuggle at my side as I pet him, returning the love that he loved to give me as well as the family.



You will always have a place in my heart because you were always kind to me when no one else was, and you always had love to give. I am, in part, happy that you and Clementine will now finally be together again, after seven years of being apart. Requiescat in pace, Bandit...

12:59am: The VGCats Valentines are cute, but I think my favorite is this one from Four Color Rebellion:



Isn't that uber-adorable?!

11:36pm: Reflections of 2006
I ganked this meme from nucleophile, by the way.

( Read more... )

11:51pm: this week
Today was the last day of finals week, and it has been packed with ASL-related final tasks. We have given the students two weeks to get together with another student and come up with a conversation (that contains several required elements). We taped those conversations over three days at the beginning of this week, and we also had the students do a sort of pop quiz at the end, signing 20 vocabulary words, 5 sentences, and 3 classifiers. Then grading those finals took several afternoons and a solid Thursday. This reminds me of how utterly time-consuming grading language courses can be - we have a written test (which is "easy" to grade), but we also have to evaluate an individual's communication skills in the language (which takes about 15-20 minutes per person). This time adds up very, very quickly. So now I have zero sympathy for people who complain that grading a chemistry final can take up to five or six hours for 300 people - they should try grading 50 15-20 minute presentations on top of that, taking care to record any errors that the signers make :)

I'm looking forward to going to Washington and visiting my friends handspeakboy and dcgommenginger in Seattle as well as my family. It turns out that I will "unfortunately" miss the gathering of my dad's side of the family, which takes place the day before I arrive. Shucks. I wonder if my cousin Paul will be in town this year - he strongly takes after his aunt and maintains absolutely zero contact with any member of the family, including his own mother (though I can't really blame him for the latter). I also wonder what I will do during the two-week break. I hope my family made their usual sweets this year - fudge, Christmas cookies, shortbread cookies, peanut brittle ... those were amazing last year.

5:14pm: Update.
( Read more... )

Other than that... nothing much is new with me. My parents will be in town on the 8th and 9th, and I am probably going home after the 15th. We'll see. William will be gone for the entire holiday, so there's not much reason for me to stick around here.

9:29pm: No, I'm not dead.
Livejournal posts for me come in cycles. There is a point where I feel motivated and driven to post about my daily routines day after day, and even several times a day. And then something happens. And then I stop and fall into LiveJournal silence for months at a time. Until I reach the point where I feel like updating and then I start posting regularly ... until the cycle begins once again. Let's see how long I last this time, shall we?

This summer has largely been a good one for me. Most of the things I did this summer centered around William - the two of us are still going strong (six months at September's end!) and whatever complaints I had about William way back at the beginning of the relationship have largely resolved themselves. So, by gay men's standards, William and I are practically married ... which is far from the truth since neither of us are quite ready for that much of a commitment. William has for all practical purposes kept his interest in learning sign language, which is excellent although there is one significant drawback to learning ASL from me. What is that, you ask? I speak when I sign and William, much like pretty much every other hearing person on the planet, has learned to understand and rely on my voice more than my signs to understand me. This is yet another incentive for me to try and break that horrid total communication (or more accurately, simultaneous communication) habit that I grew up under and use exclusively ASL. It is extremely hard for me to do that, though, because I've been doing this my entire life.

When William went off to China, I had two people come to visit me who had never been to the Bay Area before (or visited it briefly): dcgommenginger and handspeakboy. So, in essence, I got to see all of the touristy stuff twice in the same month. That isn't bad, because this will likely be the last time I will get to go sightseeing in the Bay Area for the duration of my stay here at Stanford. They were wonderful, wonderful guests and I had an amazing time having visitors - it makes me wish that I had friends here that I could hang out with like that since I had such great conversations with these two each night. It's better now that I have William back, but William has made a point that I shouldn't have him as my only friend here and he's right. The problem is who I should try to contact and befriend - and how I should approach that exactly. We'll see what comes of this.

Research has largely been obstacle-ridden - I'm kind of beginning to question whether I belong here because I've been spending the past year on this project and haven't really gotten anywhere yet. Fortunately, my advisor has been very understanding and a great boss about this and I wonder what I'll be doing next if this project becomes dead. Marc's free radical polymerization stuff seems pretty sweet, but I don't know if the project is sizable enough to extend to two doctoral students rather than just one. I know that Marc would be an awesome person to work with - he's already been super helpful with questions and advice for as long as I've been here. We'll see, though. I sure would love to quit the GCEP group, though - electrocatalytic oxidation is definitely not my cup of tea and the Friday meetings are a colossal sinkhole for energy, time, and sanity.

I've been offered the head TA position for Professor Trost's class in the winter (third quarter organic chemistry). I am hesitant to accept that position because, frankly, Trost is a jerk to many students and I really would rather not work with people like that. However, the money is nice, I like listening to Trost's lectures, and I've TAed the course before, which are all bonuses. Still, I think that professors should teach courses by choice, not by necessity, and this applies especially to tenured research professors such as Trost.

Speaking of lecturers, I was blown away by Professor Stack's talk on bioinspired epoxidation catalysts at the national American Chemical Society conference last week - I thoroughly enjoyed the talk. Bob was okay - he was intensely motivated, though, when he talked about his carbene work (less so about his Ti radical work) and really sold his work to the audience, and that's a very nice thing to see in what was otherwise basically an amorphous combination of uninteresting 20- or 30-minute long chemistry lectures.

Fall is not quite in the air yet - still summer over here. I miss the Septembers and Octobers in Washington.

7:59pm: A test.
I was bored this evening and decided, for the hell of it, to write a test. The subject? Myself. This was inspired by a Facebook profile that I read this evening - one part was called "20 Answers" and I thought this was a cool idea.

You can take the test if you want - I really don't care. The fun was in making the test, but I am of course curious to see how well the people who know me perform on the test. I won't post the answers, though - it's more enriching to learn the answers for yourself as time goes on, isn't it?

Here is the test.

10:39pm: Long live the 1920s
I just came back from the movies. On four Fridays this summer, the Stanford Theater is playing a silent movie. I missed the first Friday, which played The Merry Widow - I attended this one, though, the second of four, titled Diary of a Lost Girl. It was a well-done movie considering the extremely limited resources that filmmakers from that era had at their disposal. I had personally never seen a silent movie drama (only comedies - Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton), so that was cool as well. Too bad I'm not hearing - I would have wanted to see what it would be like to have a person playing a Mighty Wurlitzer organ the entire time to accompany the movie. In any case, the only thing that could have made this night perfect would have been if I had someone to go with. Alas, this was not the case. The next silent movie Friday will be in two weeks ... but I have dcgommenginger visiting me that day, and I'm not sure if he would be up for that kind of experience. The last movie is Phantom of the Opera on September 2nd and I am so there. I cannot wait for that one :) ... September 2nd ... why does that date sound so familiar?

In any case, yes, it is possible for me, a deaf person, to attend a "regular" movie showing. A select few theaters have RWC (rear window captioning) technology which basically provides subtitles for me without serving as a distraction for other, hearing patrons of the same showing. Basically, the subtitles are displayed in reverse on a marquee thing at the back of the movie theater - I borrow a transparent reflector and position it so that the text is reflected and I can align it with the movie screen. It's pretty cool.

2:45pm: Thursday
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3:39pm: Wednesday
I'm sitting here in the lab, waiting for one of the labmates to finish talking with Bob so I can talk to him myself about what I hope to be a quick and painless petition for the Registrar here at Stanford. Long story short, I was supposed to drop seven units because of the intensive course I TAed this summer, and I thought I did, but apparently, the registrar doesn't think so and I will have to pocket the difference for now. Ouch. Hence, the petition to nicely ask the registrar to change my course load to the way it's supposed to be and to erase that unsightly mark on my student bill that is the extra tuition charge. We'll see what happens.

William posted the first set of pictures for his trip to China today, and it is very clear that he is having fun. I am not sure why, but when I looked at these pictures, though, I felt an enormous sense of sadness that lasted for a while even after I stopped looking at the pictures. Why did I become so very sad after looking at the pictures? I should be happy because William is having fun, and that is all I want for him - for him to be happy. He is in China for a very unique experience, both for learning and for adventure, and I think that is a fantastic opportunity for him. So why am I getting sad when I think about that kind of thing? I wish I knew. I'm afraid also that this feeling of sadness will last while he's gone for the entire five weeks, and I don't like it. It's not something that I can hide very easily from anyone ... I guess it's fortunate, then, that William can't see me over the internet and thus cannot see how sad I feel sometimes (including right now as I write this). I mean, I don't think William will be able to answer the question of why I feel this way - I think that answer comes from within and I haven't found it yet. There are a couple of things that I think William could do to alleviate this sadness, but I'm certainly not going to ask him to do anything for me - I want him to do stuff on his own without my influence. In any case, if this sadness persists, then the next five weeks are seriously going to blow.

I hope the lab experiment today goes well. We'll see what happens today when I analyze my experimental results. It is tough to come in the afternoons after spending the morning and early afternoon elsewhere because I don't feel like I have anything to do when I'm here. I hope things will improve on Friday, my first full day back here. We'll see, though.

You know, the color pink looks good on some people, but it definitely doesn't look good on the person who just walked past me now.

4:33pm: Update, part II.
Some parts may be redundant based on the last journal entry, but I'm just going to type out what comes to mind. My extemporaneous writing is at my best that way, I think.

( Read more... )

11:52am: Hello.
It has been a long time since I've updated this journal, and a few things have happened since I updated this journal last.

( Update: part I )

That's all for now, I suppose.

2:06am: Blah.
Don't feel like writing much. Finished my mom's project, almost done with spring quarter.

I dunno why, but I feel very blah today - sort of sad, sort of apathetic, sort of pensive, sort of irrational. Oh well.

Will write more later ... if I remember.

1:48am: Yay for memes.
Ganked from dudepower1982.

This is for us. Fill in the blanks as you see fit, reply, and if you want, repost it on your LJ.

1. Name people call you by:
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2. Age:
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3. Single or Taken:
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4. Favorite Movie:
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5. Favorite Song:
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6. Favorite Band:
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7. Kinky or Clean:
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8. Tattoos and/or Piercings:
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HERE COMES THE FUN ... ... ...

1. Do we know each other outside of livejournal?
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2. What song reminds you of me?
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3. Would you have my back in a fight?
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4. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest?
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5. What is your favorite memory of us?
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6. What is your favorite sexual activity?
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7. Would you give me a kidney?
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8. Tell me one odd/intresting fact about you?
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9. Would you take care of me when I'm sick?
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10. Do you want to tell me something that you couldn't before?
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11. If I were a candy what would I be?
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12. Have you ever seen me naked?
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13. Do you think I'm a good person?
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14. Would you drive across country with me?
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15. Do you think I'm attractive?
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16. Are there ever times when you want to call me but don't?
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17. Have you ever slept with someone famous?
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18. If you could change anything about me, would you? what would it be?
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19. What is the best advice you can give me?
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20.Would you come over for no reason just to hang out?
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21. Will you post this so I can fill it out for you ?
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