Not much in terms of exciting events have taken place so far--okay, there was the Moon Festival and the Pumkin Patch and other such events, but I'll save those for another time when I'm not so busy.

Moving on, I was inspired by a web site though, which in turn made me want to have my own digital camera more than ever. This guy has amazing origami making skills I could only hope to have. I did make a pretty cool dragon some time ago though...possibly two years ago that I still have. I'd like to post it on the Internet, which in turn gave me the idea that I should have an origami and crafts section in my gallery, because as much as I love to draw, I also love any sort of crafty stuff. This is why I want to have a digital camera. Also, I want one so I can take pictures of all the beautiful/interesting/strange things I see at college.

Heh, I guess making a web site is harder than I'd thought. But, I will not give up! Maybe by the end of this semester it will be good enough to show people. Meanwhile, what do you guys think of the name "MindScape"? I wanted a title along the lines of...an escape of the mind, a place to go to to release observations of the mind to share with others.

After two and a half years of blogging, I've decided to try something new. At the moment, I'm attempting to set up a web site using WordPress. I'm in the process of developing my own theme, and also thinking of what the main focus of the web site will be. I'm thinking of using it as a place for posting poems, stories, a collection of my favorite quotes, and art work. I may have occasional comic strips too. It depends on how reliable my web host will be.

I'm deleting Periscopic Dome and starting fresh. Why? 1. It's a hassel to make updates when all I can use is HTML (my current web host doesn't allow PHP uploads and doesn't provide MySQL services). 2. I don't like using iframes as it's hard to bookmark or link to certain pages. 3. I don't have much of a chance for visitor feedback.

I think this new beginning will motivate me to write with greater control over words, and possibly cause me to become more creative. Hopefully, if I work hard enough, I'll have something to be proud of and cherish for decades.

Here's my results after a survey:

Your True Birth Month Is March

Moody Secretive Revengeful Trustworthy Affectionate Loves traveling Loves attention Shy and reserved Musically talented Loves home decor Not easily angered Sensitive to others Loves special things Attractive personality Loves to serve others Loves peace and serenity Observant and assess others Loves to dream and fantasize Appreciative and returns kindness Hasty decisions in choosing partners Naturally honest, generous and sympathetic

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Here's my actual birth month:

Your Birth Month is November

Tolerant and inspirational, you are wise beyond your years. You are universally sympathetic and a great humanitarian. Your soul reflects: Compassion, friendship, and secret love Your gemstone: Citrine Your flower: Chrysanthemum Your colors: Dark blue, red, and yellow

I'm currently watching, and trying to finish watching Rurouni Kenshin. I've become so obsessed over him, that I decided to research the true meaning of his name. I found that Himura Kenshin translates to 緋村剣心¹ in Japanese Kanji. Then I used those characters as possible Chinese characters, and translated them separately. The first character, fēi, means dark red or purple silk. I'm thinking Kenshin's kimono(?) is supposed to be dark red or purple. The color may also symbolize bloodshed of so many people in his village, or the actual village's name. Cūn is the next character wich means village. The third character is one I'm unsure of the meaning. If any of you know, could you tell me? The last character, xīn, means heart.

I'm currently on episode 50, and I'm dieing to know what his name really means. I'd just found Kenshin's real name in episode 43, but I was unable to find the meaning of it. Once again, if any of you have information on the meaning of Kenshin's name, that'd be really helpful.

1. Characters obtained from Wikipedia

Title: The Catcher in the Rye
Author: J.D. Salinger
Date Written: Late 1940s–early 1950s
Date Read: 6.24.04
Main characters:

• Holden Caufield- narrator, main character, son of wealthy New York family, adolescent foibles get worse
• Phoebe-sister of Holden, more mature and intelligent than her age, well respected by Holden
• Mr. Antolini- English teacher who tries to save Holden

Themes:

• Hatred of phoniness
• Alienation within society that is increasingly sacrificing values for the sake of society
• Difficulty of adolescence

Symbols:

• Hunting hat-uniqueness
• Ducks in the pond-curiosity of youth, willingness to encounter
• “catcher”-catching kids before they reach “adulthood”
• museum of Natural History-world Holden wishes to live in, unchanging

Memorable Quotations:

• “Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”
• “That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all”
• “I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of terrible fall…”

Summary:

Holden Caufield begins by saying that he doesn’t intend for the novel to serve as his life story. He only tells of what occurred last Christmas in the coarse of only five days. In this story, Holden seems to be a typical adolescent until the story grows gradually more complex. One gets the feeling that Holden is mentally insane and is self destructive. He is unusually depressive and does things so spontaneously. He keeps repeating phrases such as “that kills me” and “…really” and uses words such as “phony” a lot. He is a failure at school and yet his parents are rich and are extremely worried about him. In the end however, Holden refuses to tell what happened next and how he got sick. In the end, he states that it’s amazing how you can miss people who are gone.

Other:

Holden never addresses his emotions directly, and never attempted to discover the source of his troubles. He really needs people to love him but his wall of bitterness towards others prevents him from having many successes in bonding. He depends on his alienation, but it destroys him. Holden consistently contradicts himself.

1. Do the following WITHOUT complaint.
2. Choose 5 people to do this after you completed yours.
3. Leave a tag on the person’s tagboard to say he/she has been tagged.
4. Start your post with I have been tagged, then do this. (Copy and paste!)

Favorites:

* Color: blue
* Food: chocolate
* Movie: don’t have one
* Sport: in P.E. I like hockey, in the olympics, I like figure skating
* Day of the Week: Saturday
* Season: spring
* Ice Cream: cookies 'n cream

Currents:

* Mood: annoyed-my brother's annoying me as I type
* Clothes: t-shirt and jeans
* Desktop: watercolor painting of an Asian girl with bangs in shades of pink, golden yellow, and other pastelly warm colors
* Time: 10:36 AM
* Surroundings: computer, pencils, phone, clock, wall, roof, door, window, brother
* Annoyances: Tony saying "this is so boring boring boring boring...etc
* Thoughts: How can I get my brother to stop being annoying

Firsts:

* Best Friend: Danie
* Crush: Ling Fei
* Movie: Beauty and the Beast? Don't remember
* Lie: don’t remember
* Music: some sort of Chinese music

Last:

* Drink: milk
* Car Ride: today
* Crush: can't remember
* Phone Call: Mom
* CD played: X/1999 soundtrack

Have you ever…

* …dated one of your best friends: no
* …broken the law: yes
* …been arrested: no
* …been on TV: yes
* …kissed someone you don’t know: no

Things:

* 5 things you are good at: making, fixing and taking things apart, math, music, wasting time
* 4 things you’ve done today: sent Tony to the dentist, ate breakfast, checked my email, went on livejournal
* 3 things you can hear right now: voices, washing machine, keys tapping on my keyboard
* 1 thing you do when you are bored: write

I’ve tagged:

1. Feifei
2. Christine
3. Emma
4. Susan
5. Feifei Ye

Book: The Bonesetter's Daughter
Author: Amy Tan
Setting: before, during, and after WWII in a small village near Beijin to modern-day San Francisco
Protagonist: Ruth Luyi Young, the daughter of Liu LuLing
Themes: The clash between Chinese and American cultures, depression and paranoia, finding one's past through memories and written documents

This story is written in four parts with two main stories.
One is the story of Ruth, an American-born Chinese woman, a ghostwriter for self-help books, in a relationship with a white man, stepmother to his two teenaged daughters, and finally, daughter of LuLing, who Ruth fears is becoming demented. Ruth begins to realize what her mother's memory loss means to both of them: for her mother, an increased need for attention, for Ruth, disappearing stories that could help Ruth understand her family and render a feeling that she is part of a larger story.

The second major story is that of LuLing, which Ruth discovers in the form of documents LuLing had given her several years earlier, written in Chinese, LuLing's attempt to hold on to fading memories of her life in China. This story within a story--LuLing's life in a village called Immortal Heart; the secrets passed on by her nursemaid Precious Auntie (who, we learn, is also her mother); a cave where bones are mined that may be the teeth of Peking Man; tales of ghosts and curses--parallels in many ways the present-day issues confronting Ruth: an inability to speak up to her partner and his two daughters; why she remains a ghostwriter, without a voice of her own; an increasingly problematic and confusing relationship with her mother. Answers to both women's puzzles and problems unfold as LuLing's story is translated in its entirety, providing answers through memory and words that could not be spoken, only recorded.

Waiting to be "in the mood" for recounting my trip to China just isn't working. Memory--or at least my memory--tends to fade quickly. Pretty soon, all that's left of my past is whatever I write in my Livejournal. Maybe this degeneration isn't that dramatic, but I like to think that the purpose for having a Livejournal is of dire importance.

I'm in the process of reading The Rough Guide to the Internet - 2006 Edition by Peter Buckley and Duncan Clark, and this book has become my greatest inspiration. I am currently enraptured by the many different blogs on the Net that I didn't even know existed till now. I'd like to share a few that I found in the book.

1. Belle de Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl
2. Apparently Nothing(a photo blog of a South African photographer)
3. Librarian.net
4. The Diary of Samuel Pepys

This book is brilliantly written in plain English, concise enough for beginners, but also useful for the more advanced. It contains information from choosing the right computer to security, from music and video to IRC. It's pocket sized, and convenient to use.

I was inspired by moritheil to write something spontanious and seemingly unrelated to my life. If you would like to continue what I've written, that'd be wonderful. I think it will be interesting to see how this story turns out.

~*~*~*~

Bough after frozen bough we’ve seen them as they trudged on a laborious journey towards the summit where the sun’s glimmering light—bright cerise as it is—painted their souls with hopes and passions. The forest is a quiet lonely place in the face of the cold unfeeling winter. There was not a creature to be seen for miles around. Yet mysteriously enough, footsteps seemed to surround them from all angles—footsteps without creatures surrounded them as though they were being watched.

~*~

The sun seemed so warm and inviting, bekoning us and taunting us.I wish I could stop feeling as though I were being followed. Yet, I can't stop wondering. What if we were being followed by someone who could help us? What if these creatures (their footsteps looked to foreign to be human footsteps) were sent from angels above to aid us in our journey? Now that I think about it, is it really worth going on this trecherous journey?

To be continued...?