# 10 ..

++ 10. I have lived in Taiwan, Fairborn, Cincinnati, Denver, San Francisco, Portland (OR), and Seattle.
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I was born in Taipei, Taiwan, but I don't remember the address where I lived there. actually, i don't even remember being there. actually i don't think i even realized i was from a different country until i was 4 or 5 when some kids started making fun of me because i looked different. and even that i don't remember. it was until high school that my mom told me that some kids used to make fun of me and pick on me in pre-school and i told my grandfather (because i guess he used to pick me up from pre-school) and he told me to stand up for myself and fight back. which is kind of funny now that i think about it. apparantly i did. and the kids stopped picking on me. i guess in kindergarten and 1st grade another kid used to pick on me. would take my lunch money. (..as if thats not something straight out of a book or a story.) i guess it kept happenning until there was a field trip somewhere and all parents were invited to go. i don't remember where we were going. hell, i don't even remember having to give my lunch money to some bully. anyway, the kid tried to take my money when my parents were sitting right next to me. not a good idea, i guess. so that kid stopped taking my lunch money. but i think it traumatized me so much (maybe thats not the right word. shook me up enough? scared the hell out of me? i dunno..) that i know i didn't buy lunch again at school until i was in 6th grade and one day we didn't have anything to make a lunch with, so i had to buy lunch. ..or maybe i started packing my lunch because everyone had those cool lunchboxes with a picture of the transformers on in or battlecats or he-man and those that brought their lunches would set up their lunchboxes so no one else could see what they had brought. oh for the record my mom or dad never made me lunches when i was a little kid. its not that i didn't have a mom or dad or that they didn't love me or any of that crap. they just didn't. and i didn't care. i made my own lunches. and i had a transformers lunch box. to match my transformers underwear. but that stopped last year when i started buying my lunches again. transformers are out of style now anyway. ++

MY BROTHER IS THE BEST.

++ Oh. that reminds me. i went out to eat with my family and my grandparents for father's day. we go out to eat a lot. anyway, i always sit in the back with my brother. in the minivan. and my dad and grandfather always sit up front and my mom and grandmother in the middle. anyway. so on the ride back i was telling my brother about how i'm feeling kind of lost and about what i've been doing and the people i've been talking to and hanging out with lately. and he said maybe the smartest thing and the most encouraging thing and the most .. um, the most meaningful, no thats not the right word, he said something which meant a lot to me and made me feel really good. he goes .. don't worry about the future. (and for the record when you meet my brother, he's not the smartest book smart person in the world. and he always has that i'm stoned kind of look and talk about him but he's actually really streetsmart and savvy). you need to just live in the moment right now. take care of yourself first and do the things which make you happy. spend time with people that make you feel good. and just live like there's no tomorrow. then he asked me if i had nothing to think about or worry about, where would i want to go? and i said probably either seattle or denver. and he said, because if you go out to denver, i'm going to be right there next to you in a year or so. and i think thats what really made me feel special. it was like some kind of unspoken brotherly bond thing. i think those words coming from my brother meant more than when anyone else said it to me. even my parents and my close friends. and after that i had one of the best days i've had in a really long time.
thanks jeff. ++

FIRST DAY OF WORK

++ Same old thing. different place. although everyone at work seems to be fun. and actually for once the gossip (or the gossiper) of the office is not the receptionist. gasp. there is one female of the office. (she's married. don't ask me to 'do you any favors.') there is a spaz. permanently hooked on caffeine and coffee, apparantly from his early childhood days. never stops talking. and he's loud. and verges on obnoxious. but he isn't. he knows when its time to get work done. there is the new guy. quiet. from miami u. dresses like it too. nice guy. there is the cad junkie. he almost looks like a cad junkie. but doesn't act like one. funnier than you would think a cad junkie would act. there is the money partner. not old. just is much more on the business side of it. there is the workoholic partner. enough said. and there is the field CA guy. older as you would expect, because they garner more respect than the 24 year old recent college graduate. and finally there is the lady who i haven't met and probably never will because she is out on maternity leave and i should be done before she is ready to come back to work.

oh which reminds me. i need to start looking for a permanent job.
where should i go?
who wants to hire me? ++

WHAT AM I TO DO NOW.

++ beats me. ++

YAY, I'M A GRADUATE GRADUATE!!

++Yay me!++

:(

# 9 ..

++ 9. I am afraid of heights, but i like rock climbing.
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i can remember being afraid of anything higher than my head. actually i can remember being afraid of anything above my eyebrow. no, wait, actually i can remember being afraid of anything higher than my shoulders. no, wait. no, thats not right. i do however remember being afraid of heights. although now that i think about it, i used to sleep on the upper bunk of the bunk beads my brother and i used to have. and i used to climb trees and climb up onto the roof of the house. yeah, but those really weren't that high. yeah, it really doesn't matter. ++

# 8 ..

++ 8. I have taken out a loan from a bank.
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i don't think that's telling people too much is it? oh, i'm sure it probably is. ok, the cat is out of the bag. i'm in debt. go figure. 4 years of undergrad and 2 years of graduate school. i wonder how many students actually go through college without accumulating any debt at all. actually, i would bet that most of my friends (and granted my friends all come from middle to upper middle class suburbia) have gone through most of college with little or no debt. ok, so what is 'little'? i guess under a year's worth of tuition and everything would be little..in the whole realm of things. so what, maybe $10-15 thousand? thats not a ridiculous amount of debt. now, $70-80,000. yeah thats a lot of debt. and especially for an architect. ha i almost wrote anarchist. i suppose that would be a lot of money for an anarchist as well. i suppose it also depends on whether you went to a public or a private school as well. public schools are way cheaper, but then again there are less chances to get private grants and scholarships. it would seem that most people who get into graduate school are guaranteed at least a little bit of money through assistantships (is that a word?) TA's and GA's (as oppossed to T&A, although it wouldn't surprise me that some people get through with a little bit of that as well.) although i don't know of anyone who 'works' for their money for school. i've heard rumors about some people i went to high school working at different topless bars and strip bars. but all those guys have since died. (whaahuh?) i'm kidding. i don't know any male strippers. or i'm not friends with any. i mean i don't know what one is. (huh? what just happenned?) i'm kidding. but i have heard of some girls who used to be in choir with me working at a strip joint. i've never actually been to see if it were true, but there are at least 3 different people i know from at least 3 different schools who have claimed to have seen her stripping. and apparantly the younger sister of some girl i used to like way back in junior high is also a stripper or works there as a hostess or is somehow related to the stripper industry. (and to make it even more weird a guess her brother or someone related to her has a porn website? i don't know. its all hearsay to me.) oh, and one of the guys who used to be in my studio freshman year dropped out of school second year and runs a porn website now. (no, i don't know which one it is. i never asked. and to make it more weird, it was girls and guys. i guess he's straight, but all the money is in the gay porn website industry. thats what he tells me. swear.) anyway, the kid who was in my studio, used to be hardcore christian. i guess thats not to say that he still isn't.. however that works. so yeah, i've taken out a loan from a bank.. and i don't plan on repaying it with t&a.. ++