malailai joya

Malalai Joya: The woman who will not be silenced — “Enraged by Taliban oppression Malalai Joya became a women’s rights activist, and after the US-led invasion, took on the new regime as an MP. But speaking out has come at a cost. She tells Johann Hari why death threats won’t stop her exposing ugly truths about Afghanistan.”

wow. just wow. all these brave women living in countries of oppression… these things make me realize all the things i take for granted. being considered a whole, functional human being, to start with.

it’s not that hot, really…

even though it’s 103 degrees, it doesn’t feel that hot. i keep telling myself that it’s always this hot in other parts of the country, and probably hotter right now. i think that after spending summers in places other than seattle (taiwan, new york), i’m in denial that it’s actually this hot in seattle.

wurt a crappy day. my whole family was up before i was. for some reason, my mom asking me a pointless question (“what is your shower thing?” “what shower thing?” “i don’t know, albert’s said you had a shower thing.” “the shower tote?” “what?” “the pink thing.” “what pink thing?” … and on…) when i just wanted to go to the bathroom just an unpleasant way to start the day. bus was twenty minutes late, so i was late for math. coming home, i realized that i was dangerously low on gas. the first gas station wouldn’t accept my card nor cash, so i had to go the roundabout way to a chevron three blocks down the street. all while it was gaining 100 degrees outside. lack of AC wasn’t a problem, but i was hungry. rargh. then i come home and walk into a spider web. i got around the reading the news, which is fucking depressing (#9 on reddit).

i repeat, it burns

the steering wheel is so hot after six hours in the sun that touching it feels like a freezer burn. fyi, in the middle of a heat wave.

eating ice cream on a daily basis now. watching too much alias. painting at the same time.

i thought “aye julian” was about a girl who cheated on her boyfriend with a girl. apparently not!

classes are uninspiring. ME’s not so cool, econ is as pointless as ever. i look forward to math, though. it’s extremely straightforward, and i think my instructor is interesting. she has some keloid scars on the back of her shoulders. coming from a former soviet country, it’s intriguing.

damn, firefox 3 in this qute skin… it’s fantastic.

a bee investigated me during econ today. it was all in my face like “yo yo yo!” and landed on my neck. i left the classroom, thinking that i would terminate it outside, only to return to the bee squashed on the floor by my classmates and my TA telling a story about a bee in his class once.

watching a couple recent episodes of the daily show today… oh sarah palin. why are you so dumb? oh republicans. why are they so unwilling to chip in for health care? from what i understand, you wouldn’t be forced to buy govt health care, but paying the extra taxes to help out your fellow citizens seems like the patriotic thing to do.

art links

went to the bellevue art fair on saturday. was pretty bored because my mom’s perusal rate is twice as slow as mine. but i found some stuff that i liked:

jeff white
teresa saia
todd lundeen
patrick howe <– pretty amazing.

amazing what you can do with chalk pastels!

meriwether

meriwether. i like their song ‘aye julian’.

econ midterm tomorrow. this weekend: another round of math and cad homework. sucks. so glad i’m only taking cad for credit. i screwed up on the midterm today, not cool.

i think i’m good with kids. i don’t talk down to them. they think i’m cool. maybe they’re not as judgmental as i perceive my peers to be. or maybe i have self-confidence issues. it kills.

dumb and dumber

firefox 3 actually looks good with the Qute skin. font and text size is better in this version, and the margin bugs in netvibes are gone now. it’s also much faster, so i guess all is well.

i’m back to hating school again. homework, tests, and failure. even though it seems like i’m getting the hang of this, i’m pretty sure i’m getting dumber. it’s either that or contentedness stifles creative thought. how discouraging.

‘It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education’.

albert einstein

firefox 3

finally installed firefox 3 on linux. this is how it went:

1. could not get anything from the main firefox website to work. very little help and documentation.

2. downloaded and installed the slackbuild from the repository, which was found from the main slackware website. firefox 3.04 in the v12.1 folder. was a tgz file.

3.

$ cd usr/doc/mozilla-firefox-en-us-3.0.4/
$ chmod +x mozilla-firefox-en-us
$ su
# ./mozilla-firefox-en-us.SlackB


restart firefox, and that was it.

it looks buggy in linux, as usually. now i’m just trying to figure out where the back/forward buttons are, and how to get my sneaky chinese pera-kun translator back on. and some skins.

it burns, it burns!

the steering wheel of my car — after it’s been sitting out in the sun in 90-degree weather all day — it burns my hands.

that’s not the purpose of my post, though. “cee admission decision” sounds ominous when you first read it in the inbox. it doesn’t help that the opening sentence of the e-mail is “Thank you for your application to the Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department”, since it sounds like “but…” is going to join the party.

but, i got in! can’t say it was a surprise, but it’s awesome!

also, my jogging efforts are finally beginning to show their worth. on monday, i jogged for 12 minutes straight without running out of breath (!!). that was about a mile, a little more than a mile. took me five fucking weeks (sorry, gotta add the alliteration) to get to this point, but progress is progress.

ME lab exam on thursday, i think i’m screwed (but that’s okay, i got into CEE!). ME 123 has the most unusual tests i’ve ever taken. drawing test, computer test… it’s crazy. i’m glad i’m only taking that class for credit.

eye alaska and cynic guru

two bands i like that categorize themselves as progressive rock:

eye alaska. another mix of rock and hip-hop. i like “good to go” and “rocky road”.

cynic guru, an icelandic-american band. drugs and doom. they were mentioned in the quantum gravity series by justina robson.

thursday

just in time for my ME drawing quiz. seriously — first drawing quiz ever. my artist skills didn’t help much. i guess i’m more of a painter than a drawer.

had “i never knew you” by cage stuck in my head when i woke up and while i took the quiz. “the sky opened, god handed you directly to meee”.

took a nap on the quad in the afternoon. earlier, as i was going to econ, i saw a guy sleeping on the grass in front of the fountain, knee up against the wall, hood over his face. when i came back, he was still there.

sleeping in public feels very vulnerable. but it’s kind of nice to curl up on the grass, put your head on your backpack, and cover your eyes with your jacket. until the sun gets too hot and then you have to find new shade. i may have succeeded in slightly tanning my lower legs today.

went to a symphony concert of final fantasy. had to get away from school/home routine for a while. skipped out on the gym again. not sure if i’m physically improving, though. i’m still five pounds heavier than i normally am, but my love handles seem to have diminished and my legs are better? not sure.