The Girl Who Ate Everything

Update (4/6/07): The credit situation may all be a MISALLOCATION PROBLEM, which would be great. Because then I can stop feeling like death. But it's not 10000% confirmed yet. Argh. Thanks to anyone who has sent me a thoughtful email. Or unthoughtful—that's okay too. CROSS YER FINGERS!

macarons

On Sunday I went macaron hunting with Tina and four of her friends to see if anything could compare to the macarons whose awesomeness can bring you to tears. Conclusion: not really, but every place was oddly better than Bouchon Bakery in the macaron making department and we weren't terribly disappointed as we didn't actually think anything would reach the perfection of PH. (I guffaw at the thought. Guffaw! Like so: [GUFFAWS]) I will eventually write my macaron-laden entry, but for now check out Tina's excellent NYC macaron rundown and account of all the other stuff we ate that day.

Why don't I just write my entry now? Oh. Well. It has to do with the reason I don't feel like answering all the emails in my inbox right now; I am just so not in the mood. I can think of two reasons for this, one kind of personal, the other being related to being totally pwnd by NYU.

I might not graduate on time. A few credits...are missing! Oh ho ho! Awesome! I'd rather not get into the specifics, but overall I'd like to believe that this isn't 100% my fault. I mean, what's the point of having to get your schedule approved by an adviser if he approves a schedule that doesn't let you graduate? Maybe I was wrong to trust that he would catch such a small detail. Telling me that I had 10 credits of unrestricted electives or electives by advisement was wrong; those were all 10 credits of electives by advisement that I had to take and now I may be completely fucked because I am short by four. Because you know, I totally wanted to leave out four required credits and NOT GET OUT OF THIS SCHOOL AS SOON AS I COULD and then have to fork over god knows how many more thousands of dollars to get my diploma. (Another funny thing is that my dad planned to fly back from Taiwan just for the sake of going to my graduation, which will be kind of a waste if I don't get to participate in it. However, out of neglect he wasn't even planning to go in the first place; I kind of wish he had stuck with that decision.)

Sorry, I'm kind of talking to myself. In conclusion, I don't feel like writing blog entries (except this one to let you know that I am alive, I will reply to some emails, but I'm surely in no mood to eat out right now at the moment, so please don't contact me right now if you can help it) that require too much brain activity. I will try to straighten this out. If you want to help, you can pray for me and we can find out if that stuff actually works. (I'm guessing no, unless you can convince NYU to tack 4 credits of "independent study" onto my transcript for the semester, and by "independent study" I mean, "Oh hell, this girl ate a shitton".)

I'm going to track down my adviser tomorrow the only way I can think to at the moment—before his class. And probably after if he's not available then.

EHostPros, stop screwing with me

While I'm ranting I'd like to point out that EHostPros is also screwing with me and giving me a slight case of INSANITY. Their proclamation that their tech support response time is 15-20 minutes 24/7 is a big bucket of steaming poop, to put it nicely. I first tried to cancel my account on March 24th and have since then been automatically charged for another year of hosting (I've been using them for years and all was pretty much okay until a few months ago) and my account of course hasn't been canceled despite the continued requests. Filling out the cancellation form twice has gotten me nowhere. I can be civil in my requests to REMOVE MY GODDAMN ACCOUNT to a point, you know? [clenches fists, grits teeth, continues to suppress anger until I one day explode and go apeshit]

On a random note, Clare tagged me ages ago to participate in the "5 Things About Me" meme! I didn't want to post it until I was finished writing about Paris. So, pull out you pillow in case you fall asleep from boredom before reading...

5 Things About Me (that you may or may not already know)

1. I lived in Taiwan for two years form 1996-1998 (6th and 7th grade) yet I don't know Chinese. ...Because I went to an American school (which was probably the best school I have ever attended). More pathetically, my parents are from Taiwan and speak Chinese yet my brother nor I have picked any of it up. We're quite monolingual, although I have dabbled in French, Russian and Japanese with little to negative success (I can read hiragana and katakana very poorly! コーキス　が　たべたい?!!!@ Actually, I dunno how to spell "cookies" in Japanese). French is my best second language, probably because out of all the second languages I've tried to learn it's the one that's closest to English. That I've learned it forso many years to the point that I should know it today much better than I actually do is really pathetic.

   YES, I AM A DISAPPOINTMENT. Where is this innate human ability for language? Am I human? Probably not.

2. I transferred to NYU in sophomore year after spending my freshman year at Vassar College. NYU didn't accept me as a freshman and Vassar was the best school I applied to that actually accepted me (a phenomenon that I still can't explain). Great school, but not really my fit. Especially if you like food. My experience at Vassar probably wasn't enhanced by my adherence to the raw food diet during my entire freshman year.
3. My favorite musician is Even Johansen. Some people would say that I'm "obsessed", but I'm not a big fan of that term. Ahem.

   Well, if I am obsessed then it's a rather good obsession as it led me to be his webmaster, which entails seeing him for free if I ever get the chance (granted, it's kind of rare in the US) among other perks (such as him actually knowing who I am and having a place in his album's liner notes until I die or he forgets who I am, at which point I will cry heavily). I also have one of his guitars because (to make a long story short) I cried. Because of him. In front of him. Oops. (I suppose there were other reasons he gave me the guitar, such as him not needing it anymore, but if I didn't cry I don't know what would've happened to it.)

   He's one of the nicest people you could ever meet. I love dem weegies.

4. The first website I ever made was a horrible eye-raping thing in 1997 hosted on Geocities when they only offered 3 MB per website. I don't really remember what was on it besides that I tried to make it gaudy and hard to read, not so much because I thought it was good design but because I thought it would be funny to annoy people. Oooh yeeeah. (Actually, I'm lying; I do remember that one part was called "Tacopacoloofoo", named after my pretend alien pet, nicknamed "Taco", who enjoyed eating McDonald's wrappers.) My sense of humor and design skills have improved a smidge since then. A small smidge.
5. I've lost count of how many people I've met through the Internet in real life, but the one I get questioned about the most is Diana, my travel partner-in-crime to Norway and Paris. She's one of the first friends I made on the Internet back in 1998 and the first one I met in real life. We became friends through out fansites for the Wallflowers (HEY, THEY WERE REALLY GOOD, I SWEAR), first being frequent penpals (you know, communicating through pieces of real paper with writing on them) and then realizing that took too much time and just writing emails to each other instead. Although our interests have changed a lot over the past 9 years we've known each other, we've stayed very close friends.

Lastly, Michael pointed out to me that if you vote at zagat.com between now and May 13th you'll receive a complimentary copy of the 2008 New York City Restaurants guide. FREE BOOK! Go get. It.

Turning off comments because I'm in that sulky, "Arrghrh ahgahga life arrahrgarh [swats at the air]" mood right now. Sorry. But thanks for reading and staying put. If I don't update this blog again by the end of this week, at the very least I will have a new post this Friday on Gothamist for their Camera in the Kitchen section.