The Girl Who Ate Everything

[Note: This is the second entry of the day. I know, two in one day...yes, I'm procrastinating. I have a 5-7 page paper to write that's due tomorrow and it really isn't going anywhere, so whatever.]

I like when you complain because you swear. I find this very amusing because it seems so counter to your cutie, foodie, poofie ways.

That's a comment from my livejournal. Swearing isn't really in my nature for some reason. I guess it's because I don't have much reason to swear; my life is ridiculously peachy and anytime that I do complain, I just feel worse because I know I don't "deserve" to do it. It's not a good cycle.

Anyway, this entry is rather sweary, in case you couldn't tell where this is going.

Last night I burned my right palm in four different places when I grabbed the handle of my metal strainer that I had forgotten was heated by the burner that was cooking a pot of noodles. My first reaction was, "OH MY GOD OH JESUS PAIN FUCK"...in my head. I didn't make a sound while transferring the pot to the sink as quickly as possible (which was pretty quick since the sink is opposite to the burners). I think a normal person would've shouted something in pain or dropped the pot, but I spent that extra split second to dump the pot in the sink instead of dropping it on the floor. While running my hand under cold water, all I could think was, "Robyn, you're a fucking idiot. Good job."

Now I'm thinking, "This is why someone invented rubber handle covers."

While I was in the bathroom running more cold water over my hand I was reminded of one reason that I endured the raw food diet for one and a half years; heat is destructful. Of course, heat also allows us to cook things and thus make certain foods edible that wouldn't otherwise be edible, but stick your hand on a burner and see what happens. Cooking kills. Of course, I'm not going back to the raw food diet based on this idea, but you can keep it in mind.

This morning I had another reason to go solitarily expletive crazy. My roommate moved out this morning with the help of her mum. Yay, now I have the place to myself (until Wednesday)! She was an alright roommate, not the greatest, but far from the worse. She's been packing up her stuff since yesterday and I would think that since we don't live in a particularly large place she wouldn't have any problem...ye know, not leaving things behind. Because. She'd look through everything. Yeah.

You can see where this is going, right?

SHE LEFT ALL HER SHIT IN THE KITCHEN. Okay. Not all of it, but most of it. I opened the freezer, where I have absolutely nothing, only to see bags (some open and some not) of frozen vegetables, fruit, and edamame. I look in the main refrigerator and see multiple bottles of orange juice (yes, two bottles that had been consumed at different rates) and half a dozen eggs that expired in February. I look in the vegetable bin and find an unopened bag of lettuce that is so rotten that it has peed a puddle of brown water. The bag, despite being made of plastic, may had also been decomposing. Another bin under the shelf holds the treasure of "I don't know how long this has been here" smoked salmon, some kind of vegetable spread, and other things. The inside shelves of the door hold her numerous jars of jam and bottles of sauce and salad dressing. I looked into her dry goods cabinet over the sink and, lo and behold, I find bottles of oil, sauces, cans of tuna fish, other condiments, etc.

I was left with the task of chucking all her uneaten shit out, whichis really not cool. She and her mum had been up this morning looking through things and moving out her boxes. They did go through some parts of the kitchen, but did they leave all that crap behind on purpose? I know they didn't have the intention of torturing me with beyond-expired food and dry goods that I'd never eat, but ...what, did they think that stuff was mine? I think on a few occasions my roommate couldn't remember what was hers and what was mine. To me, it's so obvious what is or is not mine. SHE LEFT BEHIND A CRAPLOAD OF HER SILVERWEAR FOR ME. Why would she do that? Now I have more crap to throw out.

Oh yeah, my roommate almost never took the trash out the whole time she was here. I think her mum did sometimes when she visited, but...my god. My roommate bought toilet paper once or twice in the whole year and she didn't buy many trash bags either. Luckily I found an extra box that I had bought months ago or else I'd have to go to Duane Reade for some more. My roommate had some extra boxes of trash bags under the sink, but they're small and pretty useless considering how much crap there is to clean up. She left behind her cleaning supplies, for whatever reason. It's possible that they aren't hers and are perhaps remnants from the roommate she had last summer, but they were obviously not mine.

...Maybe I'm being too harsh. Her life was probably busier than mine, although I couldn't tell for sure considering all the time she spent channel surfing. At the very least she wasn't a huge slob or really annoying in any way. Of course, since we live on the substance free floor there wouldn't be any concern of excessive drug or alcohol use. She had told me horror stories abour her previous drunken-vomiting and/or marijuana brownie-eating roommates

I get annoyed very easily. Oh well. I should just become a hermit. That's the life for me.

Not that I've had enough experience to judge, but this is the second year in a row that I've had a musical theater major for a roommate and both times did my roommate leave behind all her kitchen shit for me to throw out. If you're a musical theater major, stand up and redeem yourself. Otherwise I'm thinking a big "FUCK, WHY MUST YOU DO THIS TO ME?!" about all musical theater majors, whether or not I'll ever have contact with them. (If you're not a musical theater major, but you leave a pile of crap in the kitchen for your roommate when you leave out, I also dislike you.)

End rant.

ASIANS! OF AMERICA!!! OR ELSEWHERE! OR NOT ASIAN!

Head over to Jeff Yang's blog and help him fill out a questionnaire about being Asian. Email your answers to asianpopculture@gmail.com by Tuesday, May 9th. I'll fill it out now, for fuuuuns!

NAME: Robyn
LOCATION: NYC
DESCRIBE YOURSELF: Chinese American (this question is kind of vague...how about, "humanoid"?)

1. Do you think of yourself as Asian? Why or why not? Do your parents? When was the first time you referred to yourself as "Asian"?
   Yup, I'm ASIAN. Because my parents were born in Asia and I conveniently inherited their genes. I have no clue when I first refered to myself as "Asian", but I suspect it was early in my life. Maybe it was when everyone kept asking me what country I was from.
2. Stream of consciousness: What ideas immediately come to mind when you think of the word Asian?
   Chinese, probably because I'm Chinese and self-centered. Japanese, because I like Japan. Crazy languages that I can't understand, because Asian languages are so not like English. Really good food, because Asians seem to be obsessed with food (remember that flickr food meet I went to that was 99% Asian?). Other side of the world, because it's way over there. Exotic, because I'm so Americanized.
3. What does Asian taste like?
   Not bland. Rice. ...Okay, that's more of a general foodstuff. NOT creamy. Balanced flavors...sweet, sour, hot, other stuff. Fresh. Not too heavy. Soy sauce.
4. What does Asian look like?
   Skinny. HAR HAR. I'm American, so I don't fit that description as well as people in Taiwan. Short, slender, graceful, long straight black hair...wait, none of these fit me. Small eye slits; yeah, that's me! Sometimes it looks like I HAVE NO FREAKIN' EYES. On a random note, I still recall an awkward moment when I was on a band trip in Toronto and one of my classmates remarked to a Korean girl that she wished she were Asian because all Asian are beautiful (and that girl was beautiful). She didn't notice that was I walking behind them; it was kind of awkward.
5. What is Asian good at and bad at?
   Good at math, science, engineering, playing classical music (piano, violin, etc) being nearsighted. ...Wow, that was so stereotypical. Seriously though, I could think of a bunch of friends and family who fit this bill. Of course, there are non-Asians who fit that too. Less good at non-classical music, art, writing, sports....wait, that's not really true. I'm just saying the "opposites" of the other thing. If you go to school in Asia, you find out people are good at everything. Duh. Growing up in a small suburban town where I was one of maybe five Asian people in my class (who were all "smart") was different.
6. What's the most Asian thing you've ever done? Who's the most Asian person you know? Why?
   Haha...wow. Most Asian thing I've done? I have no idea. Learned piano and joined math team in high school? (The math team was seriouly at least 80% Asian, if that means anything.) I don't have any particularly "Asian" friends besides that they actually know the language that their parents speak, but I know this one girl who's flamingly "Azn". I won't get into that though; you either know what I'm talking about or you don't. (Refer to xanga.)
7. Do you think you need to be born Asian to be Asian? If you're Asian, how do you feel when you see someone who's not Asian aspiring to be Asian--flattered, or embarrassed, both, or neither? If you're not Asian, are there times when you wish you were? Why?
   Whoa...um. If you're born in Asia but aren't actually of Asian ethnicity, I'd still say you're Asian...if you identify with where you live to a certain extent? I mean, I grew up in America, so I'd preeeetty American by now. I wasn't brought up very Chinese except that I ate rice all the time. ...Crap, where am I going with this? If you're not Asian I think...dammit, now I'm confused. Start over. I have to admit that sometimes if I see non-Asians striving to be more Asian (refer to the Otakon convention I went to; oh my god, I don't know what happened there), I find it kind of funny. (Actually, that wasn't a very good example. It's perfectly okay for Americans to get into Japanese animation. A lot of people in other countries like American things...and it doesn't necessarily make them American since they appropriate it for their own use and adapt it to their culture. I don't think the anime craze has reached that kind of level yet, eh? Or. I dunno, you tell me.) Then again, I would find Asians trying to be really American in some atypical way kind of funny too. If I could come up with examples I would, but...eh, I'm being vague. Hopefully someone has an idea of what I'm talking about. I'm Asian, but sometimes I wish I were Japanese in stead of Chinese. First off, I think I would've learned Japanese by now (I've given up on Mandarin) and I'd have an excuse to visit Japan more often. Hohum
8. Forty years from now, do you think people will be using the term Asian? Why or why not?
   ...Like in the same way that people will be using the term "European" or "American"? I DUNNO! MUUUH.

That probably wasn't very helpful.

Yesterday I went on a boat ride. I've been on a couple of boat rides I my life, but I think that was the windiest one. It was bearable, of course. Nothing will beat the time I was on some kind of "this doen't look like it can float" canoe in Malaysia with my family and a million other tourists (in their own canoes, not the same one) going around a bunch of narrow streams and mountains and thinking I was going to fall out and die. Or get soaked. Neither of those things happened, but I did get insanely tan from the equatorial sun.

I took a gajillion photos. Here are some of the better ones.

bridges

I live over there, somewhere

halo

It's weird to have these beautiful views of NYC. They're so close, but...not. Strangely perhaps, this kind of relates to an essay I had to read for anthropology comparing an ehibition in Paris that recreated the streets of Cairo to the experience Europeans had when they actually visited the real Cairo (they weren't very into the real thing; they kept comparing it to the imitation...or something to that effect). The essay had to do with representation and reality whatnot. When in Egypt, the Europeans tried to make picturesque drawings and descriptions, the best of which were from looking at it from a colonial view from afar...or...dammit, I didn't understand it that well. I liked the essay, but I'm having loads of trouble making it work with my essay topic (which I'd explain but...nah, lets leave the burden of that on myself). Of course, you can get beautiful photos of NYC from within the city itself, but it seems most beautiful from afar. Or. Maybe not. It's just different. Actually, even though it's real, it's not at the same time. I had a split second to capture the sun around the Statue of Liberty; I'll probably never see it again. I could blab more about this, but I should probably work on my essay instead.

...Damn grades.

Update: Bryan wrote about the boat ride, such as the actual name of the boat and where it went, which are good things to know. He also describes the experience much more beautifully than I could since...I had other things on my mind. Nothing worth anonymously confessing, just things. We all have "things".

Last thing: I'm going to Bergen, Norway with Diana from June 7-16. We'll meet up with Rebecca from the 13th to 16th and of course, Morten will show us the non-touristy ropes. People keep asking me how I pulled it off, so basically...I got a friend to come with me. Simple. And I shortened the trip by a buttload of days. More simple. So come June, expect the Norwegian edition of this blog.

But before Norway, I have another exciting thing on my agenda. Tomorrow I'm going to the Institute of Culinary Education for a chocolate...thingy. A day of chocolate. Eating it. Learning about it. Probably going to get a coma from it. Anyone else out there going? FOOD BLOGGERS, WHERE ARE YOU?! I don't know anyone who's going, but I'm surely stand out as the only college student taking a bagillion photos.