Funny Bits #1

As "lol" is probably the most overused and devalued chat acronym (at least in my experience), I always use more emphasis in my online conversations if I'm actually laughing in front of my screen.  With that in mind, here goes my first little collection of (mostly kinda recent) funny quotes from online conversations...

11/9/09, 12:05 am:
friend: just didnt want you to feel guity
friend: you're not as fun when you act responsible
me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
me: ohhhh god
me: that was fantastic
me: esp in my state of mid
friend: :D
me: *mind
friend: wont ask
me: (mid wtf?)
friend: lol
me: ballroom comp~~~
me: i am not drunk
me: though myh typing might look like it

12/23/09, 12:38am:
me: ok
me: i went and cleaned out the screw-on tips of the frosting things
friend: lolo
me: ...that doesn't sound dirty AT ALL
me: but um
me: i ate all the icing i cleaned out
me: hahahaha
me: it was really good
me: ..oh god
friend: mmmomnomnom
friend: i didn't take it as dirty 'til you said it was
friend: haha
me: oh good
me: but yeah i couldn't help seeing that ;P
me: :P
friend: lol so uh
friend: you really like that icing, huh?
me: don't even start.
me: :D
friend: XD
friend: :P

12/22/09, 9:43pm
me: you also have a habit of making me jealous. :P
friend: Sorrryyyyy
me: better be.
friend: Ill share the wealth when ur nak
friend: Bak
friend: ...
friend: My phone was going to complete nak for me as naked
friend: whoich wouldve been very inappropriate
me: HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
me: omg that is hilarious
me: ahhahahhahahahaha

"why do you dance?"

(excerpted unedited from an online conversation I had tonight. this is my spontaneous answer.)

i've liked dance (in general, not just ballroom) for years
i love music...
the expression in it means a lot to me
uh..
when i first tried ballroom, in social lessons, somehow i got hooked
and i'd come home thinking, nothing makes me happier than this, wow
and i like the interactive part of dancing with a partner
experiencing the music together
and i guess there's always the fact that, well, i get to dance with guys, haha
as for the competitive part
i guess mainly
i want to have fun
but it also motivates me to look good while dancing (ie. technique)
and if you dance really well, it feels good. the flow and connection and the like
being in sync with the music

I love

falling in love with a new song at first listen

a good hair straightener

long dangling earrings

thursday afternoon with the whole weekend ahead

massages

graphics, designs, and interfaces that are pretty, or slick, or creative

when i successfully follow a guy leading me through a step i don't actually know

salsa parties at Take the Lead

bedgasm (definition 1)

foosball games at Dow Jones. there's nothing like them.

meeting awesome friendly people

shoe shopping

fuzzy socks

cuddling

laughing

long deep conversations

communicating with real people on twitter

the muscle burns after rock climbing

for that matter, climbing a route i didn't think i'd make it through

not waking up to too-early alarms

interesting photography

geeky jokes

bathing suit shopping

chick flicks/romantic comedies

big sweatpants

hugs

pretty fonts

gorgeous weather (warm, sunny, fresh...)

writing a good blog post

great smiles

the view of the city (Philly) at night

the programmer's moment of glory (when you find that key to fixing everything after hours of deep debugging and reworking)

receiving text messages that make me smile or laugh

plaid flannel pajama pants

taking pictures

dancing

...

good things this year so far

going to Chris's Jazz Cafe with David the first day I moved back

salsa parties at Take the Lead

bachata in social lessons!!

Cornell/Ithaca ballroom competition trip (including myself dancing as a leader for newcomers and of course the Green Cafe...)

social dancing at Society Hill

trying different beers...absolutely legally...

getting lunch with Grace on Tues/Thurs and pretending I belong in the SIG lab

restaurant week with Tatini, Erica, Simone, and Simone's friend

Hungarian class with Rebecca and the lacrosse guys is hilarious and awesome

spontaneous post-Hungarian dinners with Rebecca

getting to know awesome PLBD people better

Sunday brunches at Commons

realizing that I complain about band while I'm not at it (and also probably at rehearsals), but the games teach you to have fun because it's all a bit ridiculous - the scrambling, the rain, ...

my (new MacBook) laptop has an excellent battery; thus I am no longer confined to sitting within a power cord's length of an outlet whenever I go somewhere. (which is FANTASTIC by the way.)

Indian food clarinet section dinner

I now know I can take the train between Philly and Princeton Junction by myself

meeting an awesome person from Twitter face-to-face

about me [1-14]

1. I have a "stalker number": 347. It began as my middle school ID number (technically, 00347), and since then, it tends to pop up in my life. For example, I'll catch the time at 3:47 (perhaps - unhealthy as it is - as likely to be 3:47am as 3:47pm). I probably create 50% of this phenomenon myself by being alert to instances of the number...(a psychological claim I make perhaps vaguely based on something I once learned).
   
   
   
2. I play Stepmania. (And I've already written more than one other post on this blog about it - though the search doesn't seem to catch all of them.) I'm probably as good as you can get at it without devoting all my free[?] time to playing it. Don't think I haven't put in my hours to build up my mad skillz though.
   
3. When I was little I really loved dogs. My first paid job was walking my neighbor's yellow Labrador, and in 5th grade I did a school project (with help from Dad) in which I matched people to the best dog for them by inputting their survey results as queries on a database I populated by researching dog characteristics.
   ps, I'd still like to have a dog someday, I think.
   
4. I go through music obsession periods. This means I'll listen obsessively to a song or album, likely multiple times in a day, and enjoy it every time, over and over. Eventually this either fades or is displaced by the next song with which I fall in love.
   
5. When I entered college I had always been Windows all the way, which continued for the first three years with my Dell Latitude D820. When that laptop sadly developed too many problems for me to continue using it, I rather randomly decided: you know what, I want a Mac. Now here I am with it - and liking it.
   
6. I LOVE playing foosball. I played crazy one-on-one games against my brother on a crappy table (using a bouncy ball as the ball) when I was little. While interning at Dow Jones the past two summers I rediscovered it, 2-vs.-2 style, with shots too fast to believe my eyes and heaping doses of laughter sufficient to make my day.
   
7. I have always been unsure what to call my eye color. My parents say my eyes were blue when I was little. For as long as I actually remember, I've decided they're gray/green, leaning to the green side when I want to hope they're a bit more interesting. They do have a cool thin yellow ring around the pupils, thanks to my dad.
   
8. I like taking photos of facial expressions and body poses (mainly my own, for now..) that try to convey some feeling or aura or sense.
   
9. I love meeting and knowing people who are genuinely and naturally friendly/enthusiastic/upbeat.
   
10. Talking online is a way of life. I started with AIM, then stepped way up with Pidgin [<3], Adium on my Mac (--fairly satisfying minus the periods of numerous disconnections from gchat). I'm logged in to 3 accounts: AIM, gchat (Google Talk), and Facebook chat.
    
11. I started rock climbing (indoors only thus far) last winter break when a friend invited me to a nearby rock gym at home, and I fell in love with it. Would that I had a stable belay partner...
    
12. Whenever it's warm enough for them, I'm all for flip flops and sandals.
    
13. BUT: I am also very much in love with socks, particularly "fuzzy socks" (thick and warm) in various colors and designs for the winter. Looking to expand my collection of long socks too, a la American Apparel knee socks and maybe thigh-highs.
    
14. I am known for having 20-40 Firefox tabs open at any given time. Many of them are reminders to read or do such and such later. Or YouTube videos (songs, mainly) that I like to have handy.
    

"work" log - july 8 (why most of today was good)

The weather was soooo beautiful this morning. I got to enjoy it for about 1.5 minutes while walking from the parking spot to the building at work. Take 5 (the cafe at work) always makes a few blends of Starbucks coffee, and this morning included one of my favorites - Cafe Estima. I really have to remember to bring in my mug warmer so I can make it stay warm for hours and hours.

Topics at lunch: cats hunting birds(??) and rabbits (Steve thinks rabbits are cute), squirrels, the new Transformers movie (Jackie and Yuriy liked it a lot and Steve refuses to watch it), and the comparison of heavy metal vocals to Cookie Monster.

Walking in the hall after lunch, Yuriy told me that my hair looked good. I was like "psh this is me being lazy, putting it up and not bothering to blow it dry..." but I did (after a few attempts) manage to braid my bangs (as they are getting longer) and pin them back, which I liked. I really did appreciate and was happy that he said that to me.

In foosball, the other Yuriy and I did respectably against his friend and...I forget who... I think the friend (wish I knew his name) and I may have beaten Yuriy and Shilpa? Then Srini and I made two crazy attempts to beat Yuriy and Shilpa. I'm always laughing and then my eyes start tearing because they do that easily and then I have to clear them out so I can even see to play. I never knew I could love foosball this much. Foosball quote (I believe after Shilpa scored a nice goal): Yuriy says, "You're ready for the playoffs!"; then she hits it backwards towards her own goal and says "Not really!" :)

In the afternoon, Chris came over with Jason and a couple other people. He'd just come from showing my work up on a projector in a meeting and found out no one else knew who I was, so he brought them over for introductions. (err I don't remember any of their names...) Chris recounted how recently Martin(??) had emailed him kind of randomly and asked, "Where's our intern..?" since we had moved from one area to another, across the building. Chris responded that I was down in Row T, and Martin said, "Oh...I thought we forgot her." hahaha. Then I was saying how I'm far away from everyone and don't even know who's in our group or not, so I was walked down to Row J (where Chris and Jason are) and introduced to a few more people who I may or may not remember. Then the company softball league came up, and I said how I'd tried to find out information about joining the team to which we, GTS interns, were directed. I wanted to be on the department team, not play against them, and Chris poked fun at me for my wsj.com friends (since he knows I play foosball with them) - I said "hey I have loyalties here too!" and we laughed. Jason is on a different team though, and kind of just recruited me on the spot. We walked over to the team captain's cube and he'll add me to the email list...

Not long after this little adventure, Martin ((I think)) happened to find me, down in row T. He started up this whole 10-minute chat about finding what you like to do in life (with other things thrown in), and I think I held up a nice little talk.

Towards the end of the day, I ran into an odd problem - I discovered that in the process of working on a page, I had broken an important function of the code. The thing is, I could not figure out how it had originally worked. The method that seemed to be used made no sense. Things like that reel me in, and though a bit frustrating, I want to figure it out and fix it. But that could take hours. At 6:15 or something Yuriy came down and, as he said, we had a real-life little music exchange - I played a few songs on my ipod for him.

A little earlier I had asked Jason if the softball games are held out on that field wayyy in the corner of the property, by where those department picnics were held last year (I want to do that again...). (The conversation, by the way, is courtesy of Microsoft Office Communicator - a business chat program to install which I had to go through a whole online request/approval system haha. It has actually turned out to be helpful so far.) I said I might come by to watch a bit, and he said not to laugh... :) Yuriy, being the good friend that he is, led me driving around to the parking lot that's actually near the field. The weather was still gorgeous by the way, as was the "lake" on the property. I should've attempted a picture even if it was only phone-quality. Anyway, I watched the last few innings of the game. A couple of young guys seemed really into it (interns? dunno) and a few people had cleats and there were some great hits. Watching the game made middle school softball come back to me a little - cheering for people, pitching, calling out the infield play as the next batter comes up. It's been many (in a relative, 21-year-old sense) years since I have really tried to do anything with softball, and I said to Jason afterwards that I felt like I should practice before showing up for next week's game. He told me don't worry, just come and play. I am looking forward to it.

Jason thanked me for coming to spectate. That topped off the evening nicely... aside of forgetting to actually start the car and trying to go somewhere in drive or reverse, I was in a good mood that I didn't totally understand for most of the drive.

Summer To-Do {1-10}

1) Make an anklet...if I can find the embroidery thread bracelet pattern book.

2) Get a membership to the rock gym and go climbing so I might start to be good at it.

3) Actually read the things I subscribe to via Google Reader.

4) Watch some movies on the list my friends compiled for me.

5) Fix my sleep schedule.

6) Get better at foosball...haha

7) Get my photography website designed, populated, and running.

8) Clean my laptop's fan out. This probably requires removal of the keyboard, but I don't care, because it's dying.

9) Write something.

10) Email companies I would like to work for next year; ask them what I have to do between now and then to be good enough.

"work" log - june 9

The rain told me this morning was made for strong Starbucks coffee, not my tea of the past few days. By the time I got there it was not raining in the Dow Jones complex, so I shed my green nylon high school track jacket and made the parking-lot walk wearing heels rather than my rain shoes. (They actually look just like this except with navy coloring in place of the green.)

During the morning I tried stubbornly to make my kind-of-not-working visual design "work" (which means "look good"). I do think it might be on its way to a state of "possibly usable". We'll see if I can fix it up well enough tomorrow.

In those few hours I waited for a text back and never got it. So I gave over a small piece of my mind to worrying about that. I should remember he's got a life too, though. I didn't know exactly when the guys (my friends from last year) were going to lunch, so I kind of gave up. It can't hurt to catch up on hours by eating at my desk anyway. I took maybe 15 minutes of time doing things not related to work on the computer and hoped no one walked by and asked why I had Twitter on the screen.

Later Yuriy came to my rescue, YAY! I emailed to ask how foosball had gone since I assumed I had missed it. He called me up at my cube and joked that I didn't need Matt's permission to come play. Then he said I must come to the 3pm game session. I was so glad for the break so I wouldn't be at my desk for the entire day straight. When I got upstairs Yuriy told Dimitri and Dean that the most important player was there and we could go...haha, right. They said we were going to play shuffleboard (table version) today and I made a face. I figured I would be no good at it. Yuriy and I lost the first game but totally won the second, with some good rounds. I was excited. In the third game, with Frank(?) in place of Dean, I think all my rounds were 0 or only 1 point. Oh well. Then we just had to play one foosball game although the rods don't spin well at all in the table in that room. I do believe Dimitri and I beat Yuriy and Frank. Yuriy then walked back with me and so now knows my location in the bottom floor corner. Oh right, what were we doing? Yeah, working...

Bonus: At the end of the day I discovered that Jason (the guy I'm working for) used to play DDR and Stepmania - haha awesome. He apologized for being a geek...so funny because there is absolutely no need.

-

I need to redesign this blog's design. Eric Fisher told me so.

Foosball is for lovers [1]

Foosball seems a little obscure to me. Or at least, it's a thing of (un)finished basements that host mix-of-family-and-friends birthday gatherings. But I have a couple of personal connections with the game.

Maybe love is obscure these days. I'm not having an easy time of finding it. It's all over books and movies, but as much fun as it is to think so, those aren't real life.

One goes back to...well, I'm not sure if it would be middle or elementary school. My brother and I were the ages when we would play with toys together - Matchbox cars, "farm and construction", Legos/K'Nex, and maybe the horse barn sometimes... Yeah, I was kind of a boy. Oh well.

Playing games, telling stories, making things up. Things you might do when you're talking, smiling, laughing with someone - time to forget the world for the sake of two.

We acquired the foosball table from a family friend - she used to babysit for us, actually. I looked through pages and pages of Google image search results, but could not find any that looked remotely like that secondhand table. It was completely unsturdy on four kind-of-thin metal-tube legs, and the "table" part was a thin board that sagged towards one end. (The sagging probably made it the games a bit unfair, but I don't recall being bothered by that.) The goals were white plastic little crate-like things that stuck out from the ends with a red slider for the score, and oddly enough, the provided plastic ball (a la ping pong ball, but with yellow and red soccer-ball patterning) did not fit through the holes into the goals. We often substituted a "bouncy ball" (whatever happened to those things? 90s fad or something?). Dude I totally remember these two-colored ones! The color pairs were usually kind of ugly...

The beginning. He wasn't there. Funny that would be the case. I got really into it, though I wasn't very good. And then I had to go.

The plastic players were actually little figures - there was the red team and the yellow team, and I was usually yellow, my brother red. Some of the players were cracked across the stomach where the rod went through, and some slid along the rod so you could yank the rod way out from the side of the table. p.s.: The [one] goalie was not able to spin a 360-degree rotation - he hit the end of the table and got stuck. We didn't bother to use him much. :)

Before I left (and before he'd gone for a bit), we were together often. Days, walks, sun. Laughter, and sometimes, a moment.

My brother and I played the craziest games with that foosball table. In a one-on-one game you gotta manage 4 rods of players by yourself, so there's a lot of switching around hands and the ball movement was rather all over the place. (Only now do I see people playing with strategy in two-on-two games.) Since there wasn't much to the table, we'd be jerking it all around. If the ball got stuck in the caved-in corner, we merely gave the table a jump. We spun players like crazy except the goalies who got stuck. Before dropping the ball in after someone scored, we'd take a minute to realign the players who'd gotten inadvertently rotated on their rods during playtime. Oh and we assigned names to the players, but not people's names. We actually named them after names we had given our Matchbox/Hot Wheels cars. My yellow defenders were London (a black London taxi) and Tel. 4 (a yellow cherry picker labeled as belonging to Telephone Company No. 4, I imagine). I think the offense were a few of the race car "gang".

Things really used to drive me crazy, like my shyness, and watching him. Going up to the roof deck, and oh, those touches, because maybe they were nothing, but I liked to think they meant everything. I wondered all the time. I feared we were stuck and the reason was, well, out of our hands. How many times did I imagine?

I think we trashed or gave away that table years ago. We have a new, nice one now. I have hardly touched it for all the years since the games with the old table. All of life was going on for all the years that I didn't really play.

He didn't keep in touch much. I tried more than he did. I figured it was the way he is and mostly let it be that way. All of life was going on, anyway.

"work" log - june 2

This morning I brought a teabag from home, purchased from the cafe a 15-cent, medium-sized cup of water that was so hot it hurt to carry it from Building 5 to the bottom floor of Building 1, and made tea at my desk. Observation (only a couple hours later): room-temperature tea does not taste too good. Maybe I should bring my mug-warmer from home...?

Other notes from the day...

Discussed lunchtime with Matt by email and met the guys in the cafeteria. At lunch:

• There was a general conclusion that no one knows their cube number. Dimitri doesn't know his extension number, which is fine, because he doesn't give it to anyone. Matt pointed out that the phone displays the extension number.
  
• Upon encountering a picture in the paper, Jeff thought the entire Sri Lankan army was composed of some people in wheelchairs.
• As a result, Dimitri led the discussion on the optimization we'd achieve by using fewer limbs on a daily basis, and how to best keep the extras in reserve.
  
• Matt's iPhone game is going to have true-to-reality outer space sizes/distances.

Foosball news! I played my first foosball games in probably months. Matt has gotten all intense now and perfected his stance. I suppose I managed to play decently - Matt and I beat Jeff, who was, well, a little bit unhappy. :P Maybe someday this summer I will learn how to be useful playing defense.

Yuriy missed out on all of this... He was playing soccer, apparently. Good thing there are many days yet ahead in summer. :)

home/going

On Facebook, a friend just asked me what's up. I wrote back: "i'm half moved-out of my room, coming home in a couple of days, in love with dance, and pensive."

There are empty places in my room now where things like framed photos, a rack of wire cubes holding various books and other things, and a big round green chair used to be. Several large boxes (and a bunch of bubble wrap) now reside in a corner of the room; upon one box is a pile of clothes displaced from its prior location on top of the wire cubes. Yeah I've gotten messier in college, but I like that.

The boxes are an obvious reminder of the transition I will complete on Tuesday morning: going back home. Home is great, I've realized. People will say they couldn't wait to get out of their hometowns, or away from their parents or siblings, or what have you. I think my brother can't wait to go off to college this coming fall. But the longer I'm at college, the more I appreciate home. As things are right now, this is the last summer that I will be there with my family for sure. I want to hug everyone; play Guitar Hero; watch chick flicks and go out to brunch and go shopping and chill in Barnes and Noble/Starbucks with my mom; talk and laugh through the unique course of dinner conversation; eat good meals prepared by Mom (man I am so excited for food at home after a year of Wawa and dining-dollar-bought sameness and such); play a game with Dad; play ping pong; claim a mug's worth of hot water when my dad decides to make some tea; wake up and be around the goings-on of a family.

And hell, I have to take this moment. I miss Jersey. Seems like some people don't like New Jersey, and maybe that's only a few people so I don't really know anything about what people think, but I don't care. It's where I was born and raised and before Philly and Penn, before my first time living in a city - which is great by the way - I lived nowhere but Colts Neck. I'm surrounded by neighborhoods of mansions that used to be farms some day a long time ago, high school kids who drive a Lexus to school, a cute and little but nice library where I used to work, the Colts Neck Shopping Center, Delicious Orchards, and driving everywhere you want to go. I miss my mall in the next town over (not that I did ever go there much, and I still don't now), and the movie theater I go to, and strip malls and car dealerships along all the highways. And OH my gosh I can't wait for the beach. Half an hour's drive to the grid of streets, a parallel parking job that I still haven't really learned to do, and a flash of the season badge (um, need to get one) to step onto the hot sand and see the beautiful waves. There is nothing like the physical pleasure of slowly pulling off the top, stepping out of the shorts, and exposing so much skin to the heat of the sun mixed with an occasional airy touch of light wind. Delve into warm laziness.

If I may, permit me to have a summer fantasy for a moment? There's something about the beach - I think it has to do with the hazy warmth contrasted with the cold, the excitement, and the potential for fear that the water imposes. And the nighttime beach has its own magic. The air is still warm enough for shorts, the sand is cool, soft, and expansive, the dark waves are fringed with white and teasingly reach for and pull back from the sand. It's quiet, and dark. In day or night on the beach, my imagination so often includes being with a guy. I want him to hold me against the cold, dive with me through the waves, walk dripping back onto the sand, and lie down side by side under the sun. And the cool night scene is beautifully made for two alone. To pull my mind back to reality, there is an important piece that I lack. I don't know who I would want to be with me there. And so that perfect scene is left a tad unfinished, and I wonder if this summer I might get a try at it.

~

The other half of summer is imminent too. Staying here an extra week has let me push it under a mental rug somewhat, but it's there. Summer is scatter time. We go off to research abroad, jobs in California, family and vacation and work. And all the times with friends over the year coalesce into a surge of meaning, and gratitude, and sadness, in these last few days. I can't appreciate these times enough, and I have a silly little want to go back and relive them, just to make sure I enjoy them as much as I can. Thinking over these memories right now, I am so incredibly happy and thankful for friends. The talks, the laughter, the closeness: I am tempted, at moments like this, to hold those things as more important than anything. And so the beginning of summer is sad because I won't have these people in my life for a (little?) while. I will, probably, find a few friends back home at some point or other, and hope to make a few visit trips, but home friends have also scattered and are living new lives. So I'm holding onto everything that I've loved this year, and being pretty damn glad I've still got senior year left. As one friend pointed out, we're apart for four months - it's not really that bad.

bits & pieces

the other night:
allegro's at 1am
blueberry beer
fmylife.com
music sharing via youtube (and some figure skating, for the old days' sake)
comfiest blanket ever??
ignoring responsible life crap that matters

and another night before that one:
indian foooood...is really good
tea
that same blanket
relationship stories and later just really talking about them
(there was prolly some youtube in there too)
...this is what makes college really meaningful to me.

different night:
salsa.salsa.salsa
i really can't balance when i spin (usually)
everyone is sooo nice...yay
friend&guys
i think i love bachata
must go social dancing [a lot] more
i'm kind of a sucker for when guys dress nicely...
steaks on south//i can't contribute to conversational topics about the world??

totally different:
i love climbing, and i don't exactly know why
seems like everyone there is nice (helpful) as well
good place to be female? O:-)
conquering top-rope routes is .. awesome
argh need to get belay-certified

i'm a geek:
cuz i'm excited to set up a mysql database ahaha
and want to swallow php whole


wanna:
go dress shopping
go shopping for clothes in general ...(ok, so i'm such a girl sometimes)
be good at dance
go social dancing...hopefully to more of a variety than mainly salsa music
go climbing like all the time hah
be with friends; i'm running out of college time

i wish i had joined PLBD in freshman year. largely so i'd be kinda good at dance by now, but also cuz i'm starting to really see how these groups bond. i don't have that - not in band, not in dance (at this point anyway, but i don't think it'll change that much), not where i live nor where i lived, not amongst my major. this doesn't mean i don't have friends; i do and i love and appreciate them. what i wish i'd experienced is group friendship (mine are all scattered from various "sources").


(2:12:50 AM) Tory: i just thought of something
(2:12:56 AM) Tory: maybe cuz of the impracticality of it all
(2:13:01 AM) Tory: it wouldn't relaly hurt to tell him
(2:13:02 AM) Tory: heh

what's sensible? no clear idea.

[1] He sees me and I walk towards him. He gives me the same look, the same gesture as usual. It's something like "what gives?", which doesn't make much sense, because I don't think I've ever done anything that would deserve a "what gives?". I try to explain to him how I'm kind of dead from the week of midterms resulting in barely sleeping.

[2] Why am I having a resurgence of thoughts about him? Not much has been different recently. We have talked only a couple of times. One felt like the familiar back and forth, but the second seemed to slightly lack that warmth I was expecting.

[3] I've been worrying that I have said something wrong. Well, actually I think I did, and at exactly the wrong time. Without thinking, I plunged ahead along the lines of what had been going well, but forgot to consider the subject matter before choosing it. Then I got stuck.... He said it's okay, don't worry about it. He might just be saying that to be nice.

[1] I'm not as shy anymore, or at least not with him. I head for him to be my partner for this round of waltz. He's not so shy anymore either (unless he has always been like this and I never paid attention to these details before). He holds me in a strong frame, which I like. And he holds me closer.

[2] I'm thinking back more often than I have for awhile. Maybe the cold now makes me long for a sun that warms and for walking outside in a short-sleeved top, but I know it isn't just that. It's the heels too - especially in the grass. And the laughter, and the little craziness too, kind of.

[3] I've tried to patch it up, but now I may be on the unsure side. (Scratch that, I am on it.) Suddenly I wonder if I'm saying too much. Has anything I may have implied altered his perceptions? Because only now that I'm worrying do I feel more sure that I want to see if things might go somewhere.

[1] I feel this familiarity with him, although I'm not really sure how it's developing. We joke a bit. I have to back-lead him through the right turns, and my expression intends to poke a little fun at him, though I really do mean to help. For some reason, I might kind of like being close to him.

[2] I can't help running that time through my mind: the different parts, the little details I remember. It worked so naturally, so easily, even though I really didn't know how I was doing it. Maybe he made it easy. It was deviously, deliciously enjoyable. As we stood there, I knew what was going to happen. It did. Kind of ironic.

[3] Very coincidentally I happened to see him. We had a nice little exchange, or at least I really tried to make it that way. As we were nearing the end of the short conversation, all I wanted was some indication of a plan to see each other again. I was close to putting forth the idea, but I really was hoping he would suggest it... so I didn't. I fear being too forward, making assumptions. I hope he hasn't given up.

Today I read my horoscope, because it happened to be up on a screen in the cafe-ish place where I was. It said: "Problems in your romantic life don't have to ruin your day. Distractions abound." Well, sort of. I'm certainly distracted by all these situations. And I didn't even write about [4], [5], [6], the like.. who, once every now and again, attract my attention and thoughts.

thoughtstream 1

I have such conflicting interests. My body needs sleep (really, really badly..) but my mind doesn't want to give up on this day yet; I haven't accomplished enough to pass that line at which I can go to sleep satisfied with what I did (though when do I ever reach that point anyway?).

The 320 (algorithms) exam was seriously my worst exam experience ever. I never felt so helpless looking at problems before. To not be able to even start, or formulate like half an idea, felt pathetic. I gave up mentally way before I ran out of time. The few others I've talked to came out with similarly bad feelings on it, but I doubt any of them left as much blank as I did. I should try to get 100s on everything from now on in that class. (But is that even possible?)

I think part of my reluctance to work might be that I sit at my desk for so much time that I'm actually just sick of being in this spot. In one of Ted's tweets he said he was going to work in the rooftop lounge. I'm thinking I should try working there, or in Starbucks, or even in the library (which would be a first for me). I think of "The Publick Cup" - the coffee shop by the Yale campus where Rebecca and I spent the afternoon on the Saturday of the Yale/Brown band roadtrip. The atmosphere put me in the most pleasant mood the whole time. I also think daylight helps.. So maybe I will try working in Starbucks (in Commons, or the 34th/Walnut one might be a good change as well; I love the upstairs part) or the rooftop lounge. Anything to help my work efficiency and focus is a good thing...

Dance:
This time there were more than twice as many girls as guys, but actually it turned out to be alright. I'm really starting to like that one guy who's usually there; he's really friendly and easy to joke around with when we're both not quite sure we're doing it right. He definitely helped make the lesson fun for me tonight. I wish I knew his name. Also, the instructor was one I hadn't met before - Gene - and...eh, he seemed to focus a little less on form and more on teaching us steps than Christy or Wendi. I liked the traveling step we did in waltz, and I'm happy we did some tango, since I'm out of practice with it. That gaucho move was hilarious, but I'm thinking someday instead of laughing at its initially-seeming awkwardness, I'm going to really enjoy it. Also:
1) I danced with Aaron for the last tango sequence and of course, still felt a bit awkward sometimes. ugh.
2) I want ballroom heels. They would be good practice I'm sure, and if I compete (?...!) I'm sure I'd need a pair anyway. Unfortunately,
3) Those shoes would make me even taller. They'd probably make me taller than a few more of the guys. Sometimes I wish I was a cute short height.
4) As usual, Colin was oh-so-nicely dressed. If I remember right, tonight was an argyle sweater vest. Seriously, he has such style. I want to do something like take a picture of him and send it in to a fashion blog.

I walked the five blocks back after dance quite slowly while listening to one of the songs on Kenny G's Rhythm & Romance album - I think it was the [kind of] title track. Somehow, the music was perfect for Locust Walk in the night. It wasn't too cold out, so I kind of made it into a nice stroll. When I got back, I was tired enough that I didn't think I could really do work, and all I wanted was cuddling and a movie. Neither of those were fulfilled, and I didn't do anything, just spent some time sitting and feeling sad. There's a lot of comfort in physical closeness to another human being, I think, and that's probably why I want it so much when I'm tired like this. ... I have to thank David though, who noticed from my Pidgin status that I seemed kind of down and invited me to hang out if I wanted. :)

Running into Dan while I was with Tatini at Commons made me think again that we (Tatini and whoever included, if they want) really need to hang out more. I hardly get to talk to Dan - maybe just at the beginning of 320 since a bunch of us are usually there a little early. I feel a little like I could be losing him, which is quite sad.

I am eating too many scones and muffins and other such things and substituting them for actual meals. I doubt this is good. I also want to eat at all random times these days. Damnit, I don't want to add to my stomach.

Phillip wasn't at either of the team lessons this week, so I texted him saying "where've you been" and now he thinks "someone has been missing me a lot". Uhh, or that's just what he wants to think. I missed him a little though.

While I was trying get my thinking going and produce anything of value on the 320 exam today, I realized I had a compilation of songs from my Pandora station going through my head constantly. I guess I'm listening to it too much. Maybe it's more distracting than I think, as well, but it would feel so empty for me to try to do homework in silence.

How do you become friends with someone? Usually I don't even think about this because it happens by itself. It also seems to purposefully not-happen all by itself just as naturally. I want to break that pattern, but I'd have to be not so shy as I have been, to do that.

Xav is so cute. I was heading out of the lobby and he was just coming in, so he jumps over in front of me to catch my attention and gives me a hug. :) (I think I would like the friendliness that seems to be more of a social norm in Europe. Or at least that's my uneducated perception of it.) I was telling him a bit about how I joined team and what the team lessons are like, and I feel bad that every couple of sentences I have to say "hmm?" because I didn't catch what he said, with his French accent. Anyway he doesn't seem to mind. I definitely need to figure out when we can go to Chris's again, because he even asked me on a Facebook comment and it's just too adorable of a night to pass up.

I want to go shopping - clothes, shoes, earrings. It's girly of me, I know, but I embrace that.

I think I might read (for fun, not school) before I go to sleep...it's relaxing.

All the guys in my mind/life

My mind keeps going back to this. There are too many situations to think about. And as I try to manage the thoughts, I find myself sorting these guys into groups.

There are some with whom I am good friends. I am comfortable with them and our interactions are fun and easygoing. And from my point of view, we are particularly close if we share our guy/girl stories with each other, which is an exchange I find enjoyable and interesting. I value these friendships a lot.

There are some who I only know a little, but who are so so friendly to me, such truly nice human beings, that the usually short interactions I happen to have with them here and there in my life just brighten up my days so much. They make me happy, just being with them for a bit - I want to say, "I just LOVE him!" I feel so glad to have come across them in my life, even if I never end up having more of a friendship with them (though I'm sure I'd like to).

There are some who I know, and who know me, and maybe we talk sometimes but not too often, and I'm at least somewhat comfortable around them. I want to talk with them and get to know them more, but I'm a little too shy, or I'm not sure they have enough reciprocal interest, or I sense that maybe I wouldn't quite fit into their lives. I guess I might also include here a few with whom I've lost a previous connection which I think I would like to rebuild. There are occasional little steps forward, but usually they are just little steps that probably fade anyway in the big picture. (And I mean all of this in a friendship sense, mainly.)

And then there are a few who I have a sense might have some level of interest in me. Maybe I should think a little more about what I'm doing in the various situations I'm in with these guys, because usually I play it by ear and try to be my friendly (I hope) self. I have genuinely had fun times with them though. But to be most fair to them, I should work out what I think I feel, and make sure to act accordingly and honestly. The problem is how ridiculously indecisive I usually am.

On the flip side, there's the crush(es?)...I can only think of one right now whom I've labeled in my mind as a crush. I've been thinking a little about crushes, and realized I don't really know what to do about them. Usually it's a "like from afar" situation; you don't really talk to them much, just kind of glance over at them when you happen to be in the same room for awhile and try to not be awkward when you do happen to interact. If they contact you, or pay you a few moments' attention, you react similarly to "i am filled with ridiculous giddy excitement. hahahha" (quoting myself to a friend). The thing is, it's all kind of meaningless. This attraction has to be mostly superficial, because you don't know the person well enough for it to be more deeply based, anyway. Maybe you can get to know them more, but then it's almost like picking someone randomly, because a crush-level attraction is no guarantee for an attraction on the personality level (which is extremely important, I believe). Once I got this far in my thinking, I felt kind of sad that it's probably pointless to hold onto this crush (or any, basically)...yet, I don't want to give up, because those silly moments of excitement do come along with it all, and I have something to hold onto, no matter how much it might not really matter. If it could turn out to matter, I would probably be ridiculously happy.

Finally, the category which no guy is filling for me right now - one who I really like, with whom I feel comfortable and compatible; we laugh easily and I want to talk with and spend time around him, and I want something more intense than friendship with him. Such is most elusive though, it seems.

Heaven (Ian Pooley)

Last night I was doing some reading for psych (since the week has been crazy, and I felt like I hadn't done reading for that class in forever) and listening to Pandora, to which I've turned these days since Ruckus went out of business. Since I've spent the majority of my Pandora listening time developing my "light trance and such" station, I have learned that Pandora tends to play mostly my "thumbs-up" songs for awhile, but if I keep on listening for a few hours, it'll start to throw in new ones that I haven't heard before. So I'm just sitting there in my big round green chair, reading and taking notes, when the song that comes on catches my attention. I don't think the station has played it before, but I know for sure that I know it, and I also know it's a Hed Kandi song. (I went on a Hed Kandi streak for awhile, second semester of sophomore year, and collected maybe 20 or so songs on YouTube from various mix albums... I haven't listened to much of that music recently, though.) After a minute I get up to see which one it was, and it turns out to be an instrumental version very similar to the one I actually know (video above).

I can't help it - I fall into the feeling of the music. Whoever decided to put this song on a Beach House album had the right kind of thinking going on. Suddenly, sitting in my room at Penn in the winter, all I want is the heat, the sun, the utter laziness, the brightness, the sand...of summer at the beach. I want to stretch out on a towel, "working" on my tan, enjoying the feeling of freedom brought on by near-nakedness. And I want a boy with me. I want to go down to the water together, I want to be all shy the way I am about the cold water, I want him to splash and tease me and then hold me in a gesture indicative of warmth - more symbolic than actually helpful. I want to ride and dive through the waves together, and hey maybe he can teach me to bodysurf, since I've never really been able to get it. And when we're tired and happy, we'll go back and lay down to dry in the sun. We'll move closer, and we'll close our eyes and kiss - because even if other people see us, we've got our own world right now.

What I feel like doing right now instead of working

I want to go back to the summer for a bit, when it would be warm and sunny outside and I looked forward to lunch... I'd read the Wall Street Journal in print, since pieces of that day's paper were scattered across random lunch tables in the carpeted, skylight-ed, comfy-chaired Dow Jones cafeteria anyway, and I'd like the feeling that maybe I understood something about what was happening in the world. And then Matt and I would usually go outside, and finally - finally - I wouldn't have to be cold for awhile. We'd walk around the building, often laughing over ridiculous stories (okay...his stories not mine, because I don't have too many, relative to him) and how I sometimes stumbled over my heels and how I had issues trying to make his iPhone scroll. It was an interesting summer in a number of ways, and often made me think beyond the mostly-sureness of college to what might come afterwards.

Even though I'm a bit sick (and of course only because I am actually a little sick do I suddenly once again appreciate breathing through mostly clear nasal passages and being able to swallow without feeling that little weird pang in any part of my mouth or throat), another part of me wants to jump back to the cruise after senior year of high school with the group of students led by my Spanish teacher. I want to be in a world totally different from my world right now, with days spent seeing beautiful buildings, drooling a little over the things sold in little street shops, eating too much gelato, and gazing off the back of the cruise ship at its huge wake in the aqua blue Mediterranean - and nights spent dressing up for dinner and later going to the "dee-sco" where, once I got up the courage, I'd squash onto the crowded tiny dance floor, getting lost in the infectious European house and dance beats, and occasionally, getting awfully close to the hot Italian boys we met. And I definitely intend both meanings of "hot".

Earlier today I was thinking, as I have now and then recently, of the night of the Take the Lead anniversary party last semester. I got to dress up and I was really happy with how my hair turned out. I met up with Xavier, my French-exchange-student friend, and Amr, my Egyptian friend, both of whom I met through the PLBD social dance lessons. (And I think it's crazy awesome knowing guys from France and Egypt.) They were both dressed really nicely, of course. Once we made it to the studio (via the Penn Transit van...interesting experience), we chatted, enjoyed food, took pictures. Then I got to see so many amazing dance performances - I kept turning around to Xavier, telling him (with a borderline-ridiculous level of excitement) how much I wanted to learn that one too, and he seemed just as excited. Later they put on music for social dancing... Xav and I attempted salsa with hilarious half-successful results that often got our arms into some kind of pretzel configuration. I danced cha cha (or something like it, since I had no idea how to do it) with a seemingly sketchy guy - and tried to get away quickly afterwards. Upon hearing a song for which I could not identify the dance, I asked Senthil, and thus received my first bachata lesson. I loved it! This also included the story I now tell people probably too often: he asked "Would you like me to dip you?" I guess I said okay, and it was really crowded so I accidentally kicked someone! It's always a funny memory. My night was completed when I walked back with Xav and Amr and enjoyed an amusing conversation.


In opposition to all of that, I have mathematics programming ahead of me, I'm tired, and whatever else. I don't know. I want some sunny intrigue, some of another world, some sexy Latin dancing, some sweet guy friends...

text message 1

sent: jan 26, 4:41pm
from: me

"Lol i tend to separate liking someone from acting on it. Not that i really act anyway. I respect relationships but could still like a taken guy."

I just realized, or realized again

Penn is crazy, and the scope of my life is ridiculously limited. At dance lessons last semester I met a guy from Egypt. I actually had no idea he was from there until a conversation something like this:

Friend: "My friend and I are going to [some salsa event], would you like to come?"
Me: "Oh...is that over fall break?"
Friend: "Yeah it is."
Me: "Aww man, I'd love to but I'm going home for break."
Friend: "Where's home for you?"
Me: "Oh just New Jersey, it's really close. Where are you from?"
Friend: "Egypt."
Me: "Ohh....!"

He's a really nice guy. I met up with him and a friend of his for dinner at Greek Lady one time. If I remember correctly, his friend is Arab, but American-born. Throughout dinner they discussed things like the politics and the world's view of the Middle East. I hardly said anything because I had no knowledge of the subjects. Later, walking back with just my friend, he said, "Wow that must have been the most boring dinner ever for you!" I told him no, definitely not, it was really interesting to listen to their thoughts.

Penn students come from ALL over the place. One of my roommates is from outside Las Vegas and the other is from Hong Kong and has lived in Canada and Australia. Among the three of us we run across differences as well as similarities in our growing up experiences. But honestly, wow. I am impressed by students who come from other countries, especially ones more different from the US than others, to spend their entire undergraduate college education here. Already, though, I'm assuming levels of difference. Honestly I have no idea what it's like to grow up in Egypt or India or Europe or wherever else I'm thinking of as "much different". There are probably more experiences in common with my own than I might guess. This is the "modern world" after all. Still, to think that I come in contact with these people, that they now lead lives very much like mine (we're on the same campus), kind of blows my mind. Yet I rarely stop to contemplate these ocean-spanning links - except for moments like right now, or when I see that one of their Facebook networks is a country on another continent. I should feel privileged to have such a worldly collection of people practically at my doorstep for four years, and try to connect with more of them.

Exchange students are a similar boat of people, but could be even more impressive... I met a French exchange student at dance - totally adorable, enthusiastic about salsa and jazz, friendly as anything. He's definitely got a French accent, and usually I have to speak a little more carefully for him and sometimes explain what something is (try football...). Yet here he is, studying engineering at Penn for goodness' sake. And on the flip side, a friend of mine in DMD just spent a semester studying in New Zealand and sometimes I can hardly get my mind around that, and I'm not even the one who went! I just can't imagine living a piece of life in what seems, to me, like a different world.

It's all just awesome. I think if I were to go to places around the world, what I might find most interesting would be not the history, the food, the monuments or whatever...but the people, and their lives.

everything in sync

My brothers got me an iPod for Christmas. It's my first one ever; cute little radiant-purple nano. Since I like to try to be mostly legal with music, I've only got three albums on it so far, all of which I purchased from Amazonmp3. This current lack of variety is but a small issue, though, because walking across campus with music is a million times better than walking across it in silence and thinking only about being late. (I usually am.) Sometimes it makes me feel like I'm living in a movie - the soundrack is playing in my head.

Today (well...fine, yesterday) I was walking on Locust, scheduled day done and already in a pretty good mood. The last part of my scheduled day had been cancelled, it was Thursday so I'd basically reached my weekend, and I had just parted ways with Grace (as she was off to an art class of course) with whom I'd been talking about dance. I started listening to "Rikki" by Mylo. I like to think that some kind of instinctual sense guides humans to move with the rhythm of music they're hearing, but since that's probably not the case, I at least know that I like to walk in sync with the beat of whatever song I'm listening to. Maybe this is a leftover from marching band. For whatever reason, this time, I was walking in sync. I love the song and it fed straight into my good mood. There are certainly some things in my life that are not how I want them to be right now, but while listening to that song, I was immersed in this feeling that everything was in sync, not just myself and the music. So for that little bit, the music freed me from whatever stresses are tying me down and just gave me a happiness.

I'm starting to sound sappy, wow. I'll just say, it was quite a good moment.

length of post is not in proportion to enjoyment of subject

Today was the first day of this quarter of the social lessons run by PLBD. I think I forgot how much I really like dance. When I go, I'm friendly, I chat with people, smile a lot, joke around... A lot of it's probably because I can't help but be in such a good mood there. And there's almost always a bit of awkwardness mixed in, especially in the earlier weeks when we don't know what we're doing, and we don't know each other, etc. But that helps cuz most of us are in the same boat. And for some reason, people that dance just seem to generally be friendly. I get to move, to music, with someone else. Plus Garincha is just so completely awesome; he is funny and makes it so much fun with his personality. I just love it. It makes life good.

Oh yeah, and today, we danced hustle to What is Love and Pump up the Jam. somuchfunnnn :D

I need to go social dancing moreeeee.

crazy, again

I've been hooked on the music these days. It's what I want to listen to in the morning when I'm getting ready for the day. And I want it at night too, which is probably not the best idea for concentrating on the work I should be doing. It has moved me into a genre I hadn't tested out much before, but as always I am happy about this musical expansion. And I'm even finding enjoyable variations among the three albums I downloaded.

At first it was just about the music. That's probably how I usually start listening to something a lot, anyway. Now, though, I'm starting to notice the lyrics. Somehow they keep taking me back. They want to offer explanations, they put my emotions into words; they tell me the story I've got in my head. I don't suppose this helps, in any way, the notion of getting this unfinished story out of my head.

People - friends - are telling me this is what I need to do. The story was cut off, a bit harshly, and trying to pick it up is not what I should do. They tell me I'm better off this way. I'm not going to flat-out contradict them, because their logic makes sense. I've also been on the other side of the disconnection process, so I remember the way it finally worked. I guess I could do it; in fact, I was even kind of on the path...

The music's crazy: it's my life, right now. The irony leads to that beautiful, familiar bittersweet emotional taste. That's the problem. The bitter part should make me want to give it up. The sweet part, though, is powerfully there. And - as I've been through before - the bitter part has a strange attraction as well. I think I might know why: as long as I'm living the bitter part together with the sweet, it means I haven't given up totally. I'm going to survive on through it, against the clearer path of letting go, because this path is too special to give up yet.

I lean over close to my window, balancing with a hand on the heater. To the right are the changing-color lights and below's the diner. I breathe onto the cold of the window, obscuring the view. Like the circle of condensation on the window, things aren't clear. I know I hold on. I know I have bad nostalgia sessions. I know of the attraction of the bittersweet situation. These are my tendencies. Even with these factors, my mind is defying my own sensible logic. I didn't know for sure, I jumped in maybe a bit lightly. When I tell others I will summarize by the quintessential moments, but there were probably at least as many times that weren't like those - and just as I'm trying to argue why I shouldn't still be so gripped, the opposite reasons flood into mind. So I try to counter them with further logic. Time is supposed to create distance, right? Thinking relatively, there should easily be enough time now to have created enough distance. That argument, of course, cracks, threatens to explode to pieces, when the distance is removed in a few hours' time.

In this circle of logic I get sometimes get stuck, but probably more often I give in. I don't try to combat the good reasons with the push-away ones. I go down this path and my mind becomes enthralled again. Then I step back, seeing that this level of entanglement might actually be pretty crazy. Here's where arguments of whatever kind fall to the background: on their own, the inputs and outputs just don't make sense with each other. Probably I'm increasing the outputs by my own thoughts. Even this is an example. I don't think I can find an answer, at least not the way things are right now, and so I've gone on putting here what I feel and think, but I doubt I've "gotten" anywhere.

As much as it engulfs me, now and so many times these days, sometimes the want comes to mind for it never to have happened this way.

But how can I deny that path of events?

--

I would add lyrics... but there are just too many coming at me all at once.

Stepmania + perception/attention is crazy

As is somewhat obvious from the previous post, I play Stepmania. To keep the history short for now, I've played for awhile, and I'd say I'm pretty good at it. I've often noticed a quite interesting phenomenon involving the interaction of two factors - perception and my level of attention - and the resulting score/grade on whatever song I'm playing at the moment. In the case that someday someone reads this and doesn't know what Stepmania is: it's DDR, played with fingers on the keyboard - which means, a stream of arrows (each one is up, down, right or left) moves towards the top of the window, coordinated with a song, and as they hit the outline of arrows, you must press a key on the keyboard. You don't need to use the arrow keys though; I started with that, but typically you'll move to using more comfortable keys: I use e, f, j, i in correspondence with the order of the arrows in the line at the top.

Now, as one gets better at this game, the intuitive thought is that the harder you concentrate, the more you focus your attention on hitting the keys at exactly the right time, the more accurate your key hits will be, and the better your score for the song. Well, I started noticing that this wasn't happening. Actually, if I relaxed just a little, and didn't try quite so hard to read the arrows, but rather let the stream fly by as if I might be just about to let my eyes glaze over, I found that I did better. I could hit a stream of keys more accurately and score better overall. (Quick disclaimer...this discovery did not cause a sudden major improvement in my skills. I don't always get the attention level just right to make it work; it's a little more random.) And someone pointed out the key to me one time: muscle memory. This makes sense and sounds rather obvious, but it's still intensely interesting to me. It might also mean that I play the same songs a very large number of times. hahaha.

The strongest and most interesting example of this occurred over winter break. My younger brother came by while I was playing what I think is a pretty crazy song and stepfile:



(Note that this video makes it look a little harder than it does when I play it. I set it to space out the arrows more, and they move faster to compensate for that.)

So there I was, telling my brother to hang around and listen to this crazy song. And he thinks it's not even a song; he's going on with this analogy, narrating the song as sounds of a computer breaking down... I'm laughing at all of this cuz I love him and it's pretty funny the way he's saying it, so definitely I'm not really able to give full attention to the game. It's even possible my eyes were starting to tear because that happens really easily for me when I laugh, which would mean I couldn't even see the screen totally clearly. Somehow, with these combined reductions in rapt attention, I ended up getting some kind of personal record score (like my second best, or something) on the song. Insane! It means I'm perceiving the arrows, this information is flying through my brain, all the visual system, the recognition stuff, and then my brain's processing which arrow is which and commanding the corresponding finger to hit the key - ALL happening before I can realize the arrow-finger-key combination. Becoming cognizant of what my body is doing is slower than my body doing it. (Actually hmm when I word it like that, it seems to make sense...) It's just that usually, we think of the process as: first we decide we want to make an action, then we do it. Here, the action is done before I know what it is!! Woahhhhh. This is really awesome. And it's my psych class on perception in real life. :D

This is addiction.

i love this song - My Red Hot Car, by Squarepusher on the album Go Plastic:



^ [player courtesy of Fruitunes]

i love the step file someone wrote for it. it may be my absolute favorite out of all songs i have played. i also play too much stepmania...



and i actually do love the little red civic my family has...

ps: a friend's interpretation (thanks David)