Five random facts about me:

1. I am a diasporic Asian, Chinese-American, and an East Coaster at heart. California's lovely, but it's never grabbed me by the chest and pulled the way places do over here.

2. I fit- and don't fit- various definitions of "geek." (This will be elaborated upon further.) I am, simultaneously, a bookworm, a fanfiction writer, and trying to pursue a career in the sciences- for now, that is (although biochemistry majors do not leave much room for qualifications to do anything other than science). Although I do not watch much TV, I have been known to binge on various Discovery Channel/History Channel programs with my college friends. We still do that sometimes, even though we've graduated. It's kind of awesome.

3. I am a classically-trained music dork: hello, ten years of violin and piano! (Hello, Asian stereotypes!) I have a cousin who went to Juilliard as a harpist, and so I was lucky enough to encounter very good teachers. I wanted to go to Juilliard as a kid, but then I grew up and realized that a) I wasn't good enough to do that, and b) I didn't have it in me to practice enough to improve myself drastically and ace my high school classes. (School obviously had to take priority.) Still, I did a lot- school orchestra? Chamber orchestra? Pit orchestra? Check. Regional orchestra and all-state orchestra? Check. Summer camp for the arts? Check. My patterns of behavior in terms of "doing shit I love," they were established very early on. :D

4. I helped my best friend in high school establish our Science Olympiad team during our junior year. Science Olympiad was one of the highlights of my high school career- aside from the awesome people and the awesome coaches, the events we did were amazing, particularly the ones that involved construction. Bottle rockets! Trebuchet catapults! Model airplanes! To this day, I fondly remember what they called "Mission Possible," an event that involves building a working Rube Goldberg device. The rules: we were given a starting action and an ending action, and we had to cover five types of energy transformations in the events in the middle. I still adore this event beyond all reason.

5. Going hand in hand with Science Olympiad memories- my favorite ever event was the musical instruments one. We had to build musical instruments in two different categories (stringed, woodwind, percussion, etc.) which had at least a one-octave range, and we also had to be able to play a) a given scale, and b) a piece of music. You can see why this appealed to me. In our first year, we built a coconut ukelele and a metal pipe xylophone (to which I gave a blood sacrifice; the pipe slipped and gashed my knuckle two days before my violin audition for the arts summer program, actually). In our second year, I modified the plans for an uncello- we stole a mole box from the chemistry lab to achieve a proper soundbox, as the fishbowl we tried initially didn't work- and we also constructed a lapharp out of a corner we sawed off a door. The Home Depot people: they came to know us, if only as the odd ones. *g*

I haven't covered my dance-love here, but that's because it's too difficult to pare down into bite-sized tidbits. If you have other questions, ask! :D

to use crowley's word for it.

school progress:
- finished my last classes of the day/semester!
- somewhere around the halfway point on the first draft of my lab research paper? it probably needs massive editing, but.. sigh.
- have not studied for orgo.
- or molecular bio. EEK!

asian american studies paper progress: (yes, this needs its own checklist)
- watched saving face (dir: alice wu)-- btw, if you've never seen it? it's a TERRIFIC film, enormously funny- particularly if you're chinese/understand mandarin, but worth a watch even if you aren't/don't.
- watched wedding banquet (dir: ang lee)
- read the book of salt
- read dogeaters-- not sure i'm going to use this one, though.
- exhausted printing quota on articles from jstor! have read 3.5 out of 8.
- as of yet, have no thesis. this could be a problem.

exchange progress:
- go_exchange is done at last! woot! huge, huge thanks to Amy for the quick beta; you're a lifesaver. &hearts &hearts
- still somewhere around the halfway point on yuletide. it's going on the backburner in favor of my school papers for the moment, but i'm anticipating a quick finish after my run to the library sometime this thursday. i loved, loved, loved the prompt and the fandom, so i really hope to do them justice!
- still have to get on rs_small_gifts, but again, it shouldn't be a problem. small i can do, see? :)

aaaaaargh. i hate hate hate the running-up-til-finals weeks...

( cut for school and other madness )

in other, more interesting (i.e. fandom) news... my go_exchange fic is still stalling, despite the fact that i've an extension till the end of the week. i've got somewhere around 600 words, including footnotes, but somehow i'm still stuck. am in much better shape in terms of yuletide, though i still haven't had the time to go to the library and review my source. NGK.

also, i went down to chinatown yesterday and got my hair permed curly for the first time evar. i am teh crazy.

ETA: i forgot i had an sbp procrastination!icon. &hearts
ETA 2: go forth and anony-love! :D (though to be honest, i wasn't all that anon.)

somewhere, let us say, there is a boy. not a little prince, not a prodigy, perhaps not even someone you would look at twice if you passed him on the street. just a boy a little out of step, moving in a world that doesn't quite fit. just a boy with a song in his head and a wish in his heart.

let us say, perhaps, that he has a guitar, acoustic; somewhat shitty but very well loved. he has never had a lesson, never been trained, doesn't really read music and cannot really write it down. and yet. that song of his, it's perfect, and beautiful.

now let's say he's real.

this sort of thing never happens to me. except that it sort of, maybe, is.

meh. the thing i hate most about moveout, aside from the packing/cleaning up of other people's shit, is the paperwork. which i have no idea where to hand in. (finally a gorgeous, hot day, and what am i stuck doing? yeah. that's right.)

also, my two_of_us_fic challenge? a whole month after the lyrics arrive, and i still have not written a single word. :( not that i don't have time, but... this is a pretty long spell of uninspired blah.

i should get off the computer and finish, er, the above, etc. instead of bumming around lj and listening to the uber-girly 90s pop playlist i made for my friend jeremy. (no, he is not gay. yes, he has a rainbow wardrobe. yes, he has a girlfriend. no, she is not me, thank god. :P) so tired of this.

ETA:

aziraphale, as predicted, was... inconveniently discorporated. the betta i have tentatively renamed adam, as he is an intelligent little bugger (and happily still alive), and so i thought to give him some company by replacing aziraphale with the Them. all three of the Them, in fact. sadly, wensleydale was offed by pestilence the day after i got him, and brian soon followed due to pollution (of the massive amounts of fish shit and perhaps the nasty dead-fish germs varieties). pepper, however, being both bright enough to eat the actual fish food instead of the gravel, and strong enough to withstand the grossness of any nasty dead-fish germs, is still alive. take that, DEATH. :D

okay, so i'm kind of breaking the trend of not talking about rl in this lj, but.

SQUEEEEE! AM DONE WITH FINALS. :D :D i would be happier, but orgo was this morning. it was officially awful and took a lunch with my friends to keep me from banging my head against the wall for 5 hours.

also, there is the depressing prospect of packing my shit.

( rant )

so excited for this summer, i'm staying in new york to work on campus. :D of course, i have to pay for myself- still haven't talked to parents about paying for housing vs. food, etc, but i don't want to ask them to pay for all my housing when they're going away this summer.

i don't think it's quite hit me yet that i'm now a rising junior. like what? i'm half done with college already? *feels 12* (*or 5*) i've barely realized that i'm now 20 now, for goodness' sake.

uh. yeah. so that was random. ;0

ETA: lyrics game! :D because i am bored
( and i don't want to pack )

( a;sldkhgapowiehrfpaojkARGH. )

um, in other news, i went slightly mad yesterday and got myself a fish. or maybe two fish, if my sister doesn't want the goldfish (definitely keeping my betta though :D). as of now, they are ambiguous fish #1 and ambiguous fish #2. was thinking about naming them aziraphale and crowley, but feel bad about naming such a stupid goldfish after aziraphale... any suggestions?

i don't usually like to talk about RL in this journal, since i prefer to keep fandomness and RL separate, but as mctabby's friending frenzy is currently in full swing, a quick introduction is in order. :)

firstly, and probably most importantly, i am a college (uni) student in the city (read: new york), currently finishing up my second year. (and no, i don't mean to be a snob when i say "the city;" new york has simply been the hub of my existence for the past fifteen or so years.) this means that i am a seasonal ficcer. i update only sporadically when not on breaks, so be warned!

i geek majorly over science and the arts, and i adore languages and travel. then again, ten years of both piano and violin, about the same of dabbling in sketching and painting, scribbling random bits and bats, and (apparently) having been a bookworm since i was 3 will do that to a person. 0.o *shrugs* of late, i've branched out into the dance world- mostly ballroom, though i also adore indian dance, hiphop... seriously. if there were a major in extracurricular dance, i could have graduated already. as it is, i'm slogging through biochem.

um, that's all the personal stuff that i can think of to spout at the moment, so i will desist. i would like to welcome you all with fic (auughhh, still 2 prompts left undone from blanketforts! *ducks Monty Pythonesque Foot of Smiting*), but alas, finals are coming up, so it is not to be. however, my summer break starts as soon as finals are over, so you can expect actual updates from me in a couple of weeks. until then, you're more than welcome to spam me with random questions to occupy my procrastination time. :D cheers!

ETA: oh, i forgot. if you're absolutely dying for fic, the first chapter of sam's LCIII is up! *squees* GO READ GO READ!