2010 EP Progress Report

One of the weird/borderline-crazy things about creating your own stories is that you make up little personal details about your fictional characters. Like birthdays. And December 29 just so happens to be Rory's. So in honor of that, plus the fact that 2010 is drawing to a close, this post is going to be entirely dedicated to my personal progress report about my pet project of four years and counting. Therefore, if you have abhor my self-indulgent posts about my pet project or you have no clue what in the world I'm talking about, stop reading HERE.

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Now, moving on.

So, last year I made the laughable -- no, make it ROFLMAO-able -- New Year's Resolution of finishing the first complete draft of EP by the end of 2010. Hey, dream big and all that jazz, right? Needless to say, that CLEARLY did not happen.

So what did I actually manage to accomplish? Well, some things I changed:

• STRUCTURE COUP: essentially, I completely overthrew the original narrative structure that alternated the chapters between Charlotte and Rory. A couple of past reviewers complained that the structure made the flow extremely choppy. The story is now divided into three "acts" -- Charlotte's POV makes up the entire first act; Charlotte still dominates the second act but vignettes from Rory's POV start to appear; by the third act, Rory's POV dominates until the climax scene for Charlotte's storyline, and then Charlotte takes over for the conclusion.
  
• FALL OF THE QUEEN: this was a fairly recent decision I made, so I may actually change my mind about this -- I threw out all except one of the beginning chapters about Rory and will instead narrate from her POV only for the events that occur after she reaches the peak of her fame at Ecstasia. The back-story about Rory's entry into Her Highness and her rise to power will be instead revealed through Charlotte's journalism interviews with Rhys, Patrick, and Leo. (The decision actually makes me quite sad, because that meant essentially discarding nearly half of the chapters I had already written.)
  
• AKA THE NEW GIRLS: both Rory and Charlotte's back stories are clarified. The Maciels move to Rosecrans at the beginning of Rory's sophomore year for reasons revealed later; Charlotte is now also technically a "new girl" in the sense that she dropped out of a private arts academy due to burn-out and then enrolled at Rosecrans High.
• BYE BYE SKYE: I originally wanted to use her as a foil for Rory -- but then decided this girl made things way too high-school-drama-ish and that she was completely unnecessary.
• MINOR STUFF: Rory is now Brazilian/Taiwanese instead of Portuguese/Japanese; Patrick is of some sort of Hispanic/Spanish descent (Santoro instead of Elleston); Rhys is no longer the stereotypical flirting playboy but someone much less cliched; greater emphasis and repetition of thematic motifs (Orpheus and Eurydice; Brahms and Clara; self-fantasy vs. obligation; etc.)
  

And I'd rather not say just exactly how far along I am with the drafting process -- it's quite embarrassing.

I promise -- a more interesting post within the next two or three days.

Endymion

Really, she thought, glancing at the magazine rack by the check-out line with a bottle of organic, non-fat, hormone-free milk and a bag of baby carrots she had managed to convince herself she would snack on instead of the leftover quarter of apple pie waiting on her kitchen countertop. I’m following two diets at a time.

At the peak of the pyramid of beauty were those glossed magazines, with Cover Girl puckering her ruby candy-coated lips, her skin unblemished and creamlike with a tint of strawberry in the cheeks, and the cloud of headlines like mindless speech bubbles chattering of “Score a Slammin’ Bod in 60 Days” and “25 Naked Truths About Guys’ Bodies” around Cover Girl’s head. Strata underneath were the scattered assortment of cosmetics, clothes, accessories, hair salon appointments, pedicures, manicures, and spa treatments. But at the base of the pyramid was the staple of which she had been bred and fed ever since she had been but a pigtailed toddler, peering into tulips in search of Thumbelina and her fairy prince. She knew the fairy tales by heart. The prince would enter on his white horse, riding in on the wingtips of such words as Fate and Destiny declaring eternal youth, eternal beauty, eternal love. How would the princess know her prince had come? Snow White never questioned whether the prince who had kissed her deathly lips was the One. Sleeping Beauty never questioned whether the prince who had slashed through the thorn hedges and slain the dragon was the One. Swept away on the white horse into the distant sunset implicit of a happily-ever-after – they just knew.

She knew it too then, that moment when she looked up and set eyes on him for the first time. It was something more than the way he carried himself like Michelangelo’s David, eyes agaze with a look of expectant confidence, set into a face chiseled from the finest marble framed by dark Grecian curls. It was more than the way she felt as if he had struck her in the chest with a crushing stone that left her gasping like a leaping fish.

She knew it then, that summer night when she waited for his shift to end and he took her to the ice cream parlor downtown where she ate all the toppings from his sundae and he ate her unfinished ice cream (she had suddenly become self-conscious of the calories) before leaning across the table to lick the sugar from her lips. She knew it then, the time they wore matching leather jackets to the opening night of Spring Awakening at the performing arts center and he held her hand through the show as she pretended not to cry and he pretended not to notice the wet patches where her face had been pressed against his sleeve. She knew it then, the first time he cooked for her at his apartment and he served her lemon-herb salmon filets and rosemary potatoes with red wine and poached pears (taking her diet all into account) and afterwards she reluctantly agreed to watch the horror films he loved so much and spent the rest of the evening with her eyes shut clutching his arm in fright. (She soon had the sneaking suspicion that his love for horror had more to do with her frightened antics than the blood and gore on the television screen). She knew it then, that same night when she couldn’t sleep with all the images of dismembered body parts rattling in her head and how he cradled her in his arms on the couch until they were both lulled to sleep by the rhythmic way their breaths drew in and out in unison like the tide.

She knew.

She knew it then, as they lay under the stars inventing their own constellations and he pointed into the sky and said, There’s you and me – like Cepheus and Cassiopeia, like Perseus and Andromeda, like Fate and Eternity. She knew it then, when before his two-week trip he bought her an enormous teddy bear spritzed with his favorite cologne and how she would breathe in the scent of him late at night, shivering with the craving emptiness of an addict in withdrawal. She knew it then, when he blindfolded her on her birthday and all she could feel was his hand leading hers, and when he finally undid her blindfold she saw him kneeling before her on one knee. She knew it then, the moment her three-letter answer left her lips and transformed his face into a Cheshire smile of bliss as he lifted her into the air towards the sunset and let her feel as if she could fly forever.

No.

She thought she knew.

She knew it then, when the years passed and the layers of the pyramid began to crumble to ruins. She knew it then, when the hairdresser began recommending dyes to conceal her graying roots. She knew it then, when the lines began to settle into her face and neck, eroding from etches to crevasses in her aging skin. She knew it then, when she stood next to him in front of the bathroom mirror and saw the same, proud, timeless, statuesque face she had first seen on him so many years ago, looking decades younger than her graying visage.

She knew it then, when they sat together on the couch watching another film without roaring gun fights or blood-spurting murders (lest they trigger palpitations in her heart) and she fell asleep beside him long before the movie ended and the credits began to roll. She knew it then, when she no longer wore her leather jacket (because nobody at her age wore leather with the exception of clogs and handbags) when he took her to the performing arts center and she heard whispers of “cougar” and “cradle robber” behind her back and she pretended not to crumple like a tissue as the lights began to dim. She knew it then, when she was bedridden after surgery and he spoon-fed her strawberry ice cream with each bite powdered with all of her favorite toppings as if she were the child among them.

She knew it then, as she lay awake beside his sleeping form, wondering if he dreamt of that cute, twenty-something waitress who had commented how gentlemanlike it was of him to take his mother out for dinner, or that pretty saleswoman whose eye had lingered on him seconds longer than what would be deemed professionally appropriate.

She knew it then, when the pent-up misery inevitably unleashed itself, clawing at his timeless skin and pounding at his immortal bones. She said nothing when he packed his bags wordlessly and left, to wander for another eternity.

She knew it then, when she could no longer look upon his ageless beauty without reminder of what she had once been.

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Merry Christmas, everyone. Yes, a little depressing -- but that's my style.

>:[

So frustrated by school. Especially how I was right at the border between an A- and a B+ for two classes, and it went against my favor both times.

Overall, my grades were better this semester than in the past. But FML. It pisses me off like none other.

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[edit]

I'm ashamed to admit it, but it's times like this when I start fantasizing about writing a bestseller novel with a craze equivalent to the Twilight series, so I don't have to feel like my future is dictated by a bunch of letter grades.

Pretty Ugly

I already knew what kind of reaction I was going to get when I returned home -- generally speaking, anyways. My hair had been short and bobbed for nearly five years that many people couldn't remember the last time -- or any time -- that they had seen me with hair long enough to be swept up in a ponytail.

What I didn't expect was when I showed up to my neighbors' dinner party the night I landed in California and was showered in a flurry of compliments from the other mothers there about how beautiful and ladylike I had become, and how I look better with longer hair and should not cut my hair short again anytime soon.

I never know what to think in these situations, because the main thought zipping through my head is, "Was I really ugly back then?"

In the car yesterday, my mother told me that when she visited her in-laws in Taipei over Thanksgiving Break, my grandmother told her that I had completely changed and looked so pretty when I visited Taipei two summers ago. My mom said she laughed and joked, "Are you saying that she was an ugly child?"

I probably was. That is to say, I'd never had any illusion that I was beautiful. Before I got braces, my lower teeth were a crooked mess, while my upper incisors were noticeably larger than the rest of the teeth in the row. I don't have double-eyelids -- considered more beautiful than single-eyelids in Asian cultures. I refused to let my hair down as a kid, always preferring to tie it up and out of the way for when I played sports. As a result of all the soccer and tennis I played in my youth, I have been tanned as long as I can remember and have never had the snowy white skin of a classically beautiful Asian girl.

As far as that's gone, I still haven't changed much. My teeth are straight now, but my single-eyelids remain. Perhaps I might be less tan than before, now that I play much less outdoors than I did in the past, but undoubtedly my skin tone will still garner awkward remarks if I make another trip to Taiwan. And as I was still sporting a bob when I visited my grandparents two summers ago, hair likely has nothing to do with it.

Penelope Cruz once said, "I don’t think I am beautiful. I can look good and I can look ugly." The first time I heard that quote, I thought -- "Pshhh, easy for you to say." But at where I am now in life, Penelope Cruz couldn't have said it better.

Slain

Somebody needs to drag my dead body back to California.

Hell Week

I've already had two dreams about going home, and it's the only the third day of finals week. In the first dream, I went home and discovered that my family had bought a new puppy. I played with it for awhile, then glanced at the carry-bag and asked where Matisse was. My mother responded that Matisse had fallen ill, collapsed, and died. It's not the first time I've had this dream, and once again I woke up crying. In the second dream, I went home to discover that my family had gotten incredibly thin and were starving themselves to pay for my college tuition. Soon, I was seriously considering applying to transfer to one of the UCs.

I turned in my first paper yesterday, and crunch time begins tomorrow -- I have exams on Thursday and Friday and a ten-page paper due Saturday that I haven't started. I can't wait to go home.

I Hate Finals Week

It's the first day of the week... and I've already lost my effing mind.

I think some Twilight bashing will rejuvenate my sanity.

Persuasion Parody

* Editor’s Note: Below is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Select phrases and words have been revised to be more accessible for young and hip modern audiences.

He was not Mr. Wentworth, the young schoolteacher who had returned to teach at Monkford High School after being unable to find a job in the workplace with his art history degree, but his brother, the Captain Wentworth who, like any budding musician on the verge of a breakthrough, had been persuaded by his well-meaning agent to cast aside his old-fashioned birth name in favor of a dashing stage name that would particularly charm the female fans. Yet, it was not Captain Wentworth, lead singer of the Grammy-winning band The Captains – but simply the young man by the name of Frederick Wentworth whom Annie first met in the summer of 2002. Freddie, as he had been called at that time, was a remarkably handsome young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit and brilliancy; and Annie an extremely pretty girl, with beauty, brains, and a benevolent heart to boot. Half of the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he was like any other jaded attractive young man looking for a summer fling, and she, having never been kissed in high school, had been harboring fairy-tale-inspired expectations of romance in anticipation of her freshman year in college; but the encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. They were gradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love. It would be difficult to say which had seen highest perfection in the other, or which had been happiest; she, in receiving the affections of the charming eyecandy whom all the girls drooled over at the public pool, or he in having them reciprocated by a girl completely out of his league.

That summer was a short period of exquisite felicity, and but a short one. Troubles soon arose. When news that a local community college student was courting his Duke-bound daughter reached the very important desk of Mr. Walter Elliot, he with great coldness threatened to remove his financial support for her secondary education. He had always considered shunting his least favorite daughter into a corporate alliance via marriage to the heir of a rival company, and the idea of this very degrading alliance with the young aspiring musician was abominable. Her godmother Mrs. Russell, though less concerned with corporative strategies but equally concerned with money, received the relationship as a most unfortunate one.

Annie Elliot, with all her wealth, beauty, and brains, to involve herself at eighteen the summer before her college career with a young man, who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connections those in the entertainment business to secure even his farther rise in that profession; would be unthinkable! The heiress Annie Elliot, to be canoodling with a stranger without fortune or promise; or rather be sunk by him to the life of a starving artist, of scrounging together tips from waitering and waitressing jobs in order to pay the bills!

Such opposition, as these feelings produced, was more than Annie could combat. Her father and sisters, who had no taste for any sort of music and could not have been expected to take a liking to her musical boyfriend, Annie could have ignored; - but Mrs. Russell, whom she had always loved and relied on, could not, with such steadiness of opinion, and such tenderness of manner, be continually advising her in vain. Those summer months marked the beginning and end of their romance; but, not with a few months ended Annie’s share of suffering from it. She entered Duke University with an early loss of bloom and spirits, with no interest in going to Shooters or party-hopping on a Saturday night. Nearly eight years had gone since this little history of sorrowful interest had reached its close, and Annie Elliot, at her late twenties, remained as unlikely to ever wed. She did not blame Mrs. Russell, she did not blame herself for having been guided by her; but she felt that were any young person, in similar circumstances, to apply to her for counsel, she would direct them to a copy of Avril Lavigne’s song "Sk8er Boi" and let them discern the lesson to be gleaned from the lyrics. All of his expectations, all of his confidence had been justified. His talent and passion had paved the way to his road to stardom. He had, very soon after she ended the relationship and set off for Duke, gotten signed with a music label; and all that he had told her would follow, had taken place. He and his fellow The Captains bandmates, known universally by their “Captain” stage names Captain Harville and Captain Benwick, had distinguished themselves and early gained the ranks of the music charts – and must now, by successive albums and hit songs, own multiple mansions across the globe. She had only People and Rolling Stone magazine for her authority, but she could not doubt his being rich; - and, in favor of his constancy, she had no reason to believe him to be the playboy canoodling with Hollywood starlets on the cover of every tabloid.

She had been forced into prudence into her youth, she learned romance as she grew older – the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.

By the Way..

I will be spending the summer of 2011 in Vietnam for a civic engagement project. Building things, manual labor, teaching schoolkids, et cetera. All expenses paid for by Duke University.

WOOHOO!!

R.I.P.

One thing that struck me about Elizabeth Edwards was that she gave up her law career to support her husband's. She was always by his side whenever he ran his political campaigns, even when she was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer.

And then it turned out that John Edwards had been having an affair (and tried to excuse it by saying it had happened when her cancer was in remission), and that he had fathered a child with another woman. And that this would essentially ruin his political career indefinitely.

And here I am, stressing and freaking out about the approaching finals week. With all the pressure to score well and get into good graduate/professional schools, it's so difficult to grasp the idea of giving up all of that work, all of that effort for that one person... who happened to be a complete jerk wad. I can't even imagine how I would have felt, but she lived through it.

Rest in peace.

From Your Loyal Subject

Here's the deal, your majesty:

You see, that photograph is the perfect embodiment of what we're talking about. The cropped hair, the too-cool-for-thou smirk, fashionable skinny tie, the crisp white dress shirt, the elegant vest. Impeccable. Nothing on this Earth is perfect, which is precisely why our lord and leader is from out of this world.

You see, even if the King of all Things Badass did not always look as if chiseled by the hand of God, your loyal subjects could care less that you arose from less than impeccable origins. No -- it is in fact endearing, for your loyal subjects look upon your transformation and see the hope glimmering yonder. From this, your loyal followers learn the sacred truths: (1) Even the Badass One arose from humble beginnings; what separates the stars from the ashes is the will power to succeed, and (2) Don't pick on the overweight kid at school, because if history is any indication, he will become one of the most famous musical artists in his home country and reign as Supreme Ruler of All Things Badass.

O Badass One, I have been a faithful follower of Badassery. I never questioned why you donned a green dinosaur suit.

I never questioned your wardrobe color pallet, the choice of pairing of a leather hot pink jacket with a sky blue muffler, or the sculpting of the Crown of Badassery into the shape of a befuddled pompadour.

In fact, it took much will power to never question your fondness for pairing hot pink with shades of blue.



And even when you appeared with silver hair reminiscent of premature graying, I said nothing, assuming that with a bandmate like G-Dragon changing hair styles like a chameleon every other day, it was understandable that you would feel tempted the same.

Nothing, however, prepared me for what I soon encountered.

Who is this? It looks like the lovechild of Cruella DeVil and Lucius Malfoy...

YOUR ROYAL BADASSNESS?? IT'S YOU?? ARE YOU ILL?? WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOUR HAIR??

Avril Lavigne: My Life's Soundtrack

listening to old-school Avril brings back so many memories, precisely because so much of my childhood and adolescence is marked not in years but in songs.

"Unwanted" for when i found out Iris died -- the first and only time i ever cried for someone's passing.

"Anything but Ordinary' for those summer days of writing silly song-fics with P in the Stanford quads.

"Sk8er Boi" for the first fictional piece i ever created, the one that years later inspired EP.

"I'm with You" for the One who Got Away.

right now i'm listening to "Nobody's Home" and those chorus girl "oh oh she's lost inside she's lost inside oh oh" refrains make me remember when i was lean and sun-kissed, bronzed from playing tennis 2.5 hours per day and head over heels for the older boy who i looked up to and idolized, who made my heart convulse when he confided to me during one of our online conversations that i was one of the few people he could tell anything to. (and now that i think about it, i wasn't as clever at hiding it as i originally thought. oh, the embarrassment of youth.)

i remember that one xanga post i wrote where i listed 25 strings of lyrics from 25 songs and held a contest to see who could recognize the most songs. he got first place. you got second place. you recognized the lyrics... she's lost inside she's lost inside oh oh.

that was how you reentered into my life, you know. back when i actually let people read my writing publicly, there you were leaving witty comments here and there, like some woodpecker pecking holes into the wall between us -- crumbling the barrier, so to speak. and now that i'm thinking about this for the first time in years, i don't even know what on earth made you decide to comment in the first place as if we were old friends. we never talked before then. we were two planets on our predestined orbits, nodding in acknowledgment as we passed on by and nothing more.

i wonder why you even bothered.

The Sad Love Story of the Girl Squirrel

[Inspired by the previous post. See the Youtube clip if you haven't already watched The Sword in the Stone.]

To all ye broken hearts out there, does this story sound familiar?

Girl has lived in the same little town all of her life, leading a meaningless, pedestrian life where everybody knows everybody and everybody's business. She wants more than this provincial life -- that is, until the gorgeous new boy comes to town.


Girl meets Boy. It is love at first sight. A little shy, yes, but he is the strapping young man with the lean and luxurious body that she has been dreaming of all her life. In earnestness, she makes her affections known.


Unfortunately he's just not that into her.

Nevertheless, Girl is persistent. She continues her pursuit of Boy in earnestness, flirting playfully with him as she introduces him around town. Boy continues to shy away from her advances, but gradually his heart warms to her sweet temper and friendly nature. After Girl saves Boy's life in a dramatic encounter with a dangerous and wolfish predator, he warms up to her and for the first time, he is receptive to her love as they cuddle together under a tree. Girl is so happy that she feels as if her heart is about to burst.

Unfortunately, it will.


As expected from a "New Kid with a Mysterious Past," Boy has been harboring a dark secret, and soon it is revealed that Boy is not who Girl thinks he is at all. In fact, Boy hides a dark and sinister secret that threatens to strip Girl of her newfound happiness.

Confronted with the truth, Girl is crestfallen and mad with grief. With her dreams of a future life with Boy dashed and shattered into pieces, all Girl can do is run tearfully away from Boy. Even as Boy visits her door apologizing (though in his frustration, he foolishly claims that Girl should have realized his true nature all along), all Girl can do is look down from the window with tears in her eyes.

Boy soon leaves the town with his elderly grandfather, turning his back on the romance that could never be. He could not bear to hazard one last glance behind his shoulder and look upon all the memories he had shared with Girl. But if he had, he would have seen Girl one last time, perched upon the highest roof in town bidding him one final farewell with tears glistening in her eyes as the rain howled around her.


Alas, do you not weep at this tragic tale? Does it not strike a chord within your own hearts? It is she, the Girl Squirrel, the Champion of Broken Hearts, Unrequited Loves, and Romances That Could Never Be!!

Rewind: Disney

Spent most of my Thanksgiving Break catching up on work, sleeping at least nine hours a day (weird dreams included), watching episodes of Chuck (anyone else think Captain Awesome is the best?), eating, lazing around in the dorm room, writing EP, and watching clips of Disney movies on Youtube.

See the clip above? You know why I hated The Sword in the Stone as a kid? I always felt so sorry for the female squirrel. I may be a cynic, but I'll take a happy ending when I can get one. :[

Iridescence

"I believe we are reincarnated, not from soul to soul, but from memory to memory. I think humanity has always looked to the dead for answers and contemplation. I only hope that as viewers look at my work, the portraits of the victims are reincarnated or resurrected, in the present moment."

-- Binh Danh

I saw the Binh Danh exhibit, "In the Eclipse of Angkor," at the North Carolina Museum of Art yesterday. It was a small room with no more than twenty displays on the white walls. Above is a photograph of one of his works, part of a collection titled Iridescence of Life. Binh Danh used a chlorophyll process to print portraits of victims of the Cambodian genocide onto nasturtium leaves, displaying each alongside a butterfly specimen. Looking at each face, you start to remember that the 2 million people who died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge are not just faceless statistics -- these are actual fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters whose lives were cut short. It's especially painful when you see the portraits of the children on those beige nasturtium leaves and realize that these kids had a whole life ahead of them. The butterfly, the symbol of the soul, seems to have been frozen in time.

Today is the anniversary of the day EC died. Even now, people are still writing messages to her on her Facebook wall, telling her that there isn't a day where they don't think of her. I wasn't close enough to her -- I can't recall any distinct memories I have of her, other than the general remembrance that she was sweet and fun-loving girl with great tennis footwork. I really do hope the tradition continues, that her friends continue to write on her wall each year. It sounds cliche and overdone, but it's true -- you're not gone until you're forgotten.

Corgi

heehee :]

Alcohol

Looks pretty, right? Ha-ha.

Though my high school self tended to be more aligned with Charlotte, in college I find myself becoming more and more like the character I've created for Rory. Whether it is subconsciously or intentionally, I do not know -- but let's talk about one instance where my creation and I collide, and that would be in regards to alcohol.

Unlike most of the people I've talked to here, my first drink was not at college. The summer after high school senior year, I was at Kinmen -- an island of Taiwan where the drinking age is 18, so I was legal there. There is a kind of liquor called gaoliang that the island is particularly famous for -- the alcohol content is usually between 38 and 63 percent. Not proof -- American alcoholic proof is twice the alcoholic percentage -- I'm talking percent. Essentially, all of our adult chaperons/mentors/etc. said we shouldn't leave the island without having their most famous liquor, so one night our soldier chaperons bought us a bottle of 38 percent and we sat in the makeshift dining room of our suite. Only one of my six teaching partners had ever had a drink before, so the rest of us were sniffing apprehensively while eying the liquid in our glasses. Then we raised our glasses and cheered.

And that, my friends, was my first introduction to the world of alcohol. 38 percent gaoliang, which another friend of mine aptly named "flaming toilet." It was the most disgusting thing I had ever drunk in my life. We ended up playing Liar Poker afterward, and the cruel punishment was to make the loser drink another shot.

Interestingly, the next day we were invited to a lunch banquet with a bunch of important adults including the Taiwanese Minister of Education. This time, we had a 63 percent bottle of gaoliang and I was amazed by the alcohol tolerance of most of the adults there -- the principal of our school downed at least 20 shots of that stuff.

But anyways. Unlike the eager-eyed freshmen who had never had a drink in high school because they were too busy studying or competing or whatnot, I had very little interest in drinking. The taste of gaoliang was still branded in my head, and I had no desire to relive that experience. As a consequence, by the middle of freshman year I found myself drifting between two groups -- one predominantly composed of Christians who abstained from drinking, and one composed of my dorm-mates, several of whom ended up joining a sorority. In the end, I became closer to my dorm-mates for several reasons, one of which is the fact that I had come to the conclusion that it was extremely unlikely that I would ever convert to Christianity.

As a result, this semester I have been to more parties than I had gone to my entire freshman year. It's still not much though -- I might go out once or twice a month and that would be it. But anyways, back to the topic of alcohol.

While I don't completely abstain from alcohol -- I will usually drink one or two shots -- I do not share any particular fondness for alcohol that many of friends have (who frequently reach their limit, resulting in my job as the designated sober nurse). I choose not to drink, not because it is the law (because I don't see the logic of being steadfast to the rule for the rule's stake, especially as I was openly offered 63 percent gaoliang when I was only 18 in Taiwan), but because of personal reasons. The biggest reason is my fear of losing control. I have no desire to learn what kind of a drunk I am -- as I operate through life with a heavy filter on what I say and what I do, I am afraid to learn of what kind of a creature I become once all my filters are gone.

Other reasons include the fact that I simply don't like the taste of it and the fact that having cleaned up after one too many friends, drinking past a certain limit is not at all classy or cool. I wonder if those who binge drink would have second thoughts if they ever considered the ones who have to take care of them after they indulge.

Long story short, last night one of my friends drank to the point where she vomited multiple times throughout the night -- including on the bus, which led to us getting kicked off the bus back to West Campus. When it reaches that point, there is nothing glamorous about drinking. It is messy, it is disgusting, and it is always somebody else who has to clean up the mess. And usually that somebody is me.

Reflecting more on last night, it has become more apparent to me that my refusal to get drunk is heavily influenced by my grasp of self-identity. Perhaps I am more sharply aware of this than others, but your appearance and behavior shape the way others view you. I have never identified myself as a sorority girl; therefore I ran into some odd issues when my friends tried to (and still try to) convince me to rush for a sorority. Doing so would jeopardize my sense of who I am; nevertheless the fact that my friends are in these sisterhoods makes it very strange dynamic. Similarly, I feel I have a subconscious desire to appear classy and cool. Whatever drunk I may turn out to be -- angry, boisterous, mellow, depressed, happy, sassy -- there is no such thing as a classy or cool drunkard.

notes to self

- stop losing sleep worrying about midterm grades
- stop buying bin candy. you're not storing fat for hibernation.
- you're not ugly. stop comparing yourself to everyone else.
- hurry up and finish all your reading this weekend so you can actually write this Thanksgiving break.

I hate this limbo period of not knowing. It was unbearable waiting for college applications, but right now I feel physically sick worrying about how I scored on my biology midterm. When I think about it rationally, it only makes things worse, because I know I shouldn't let an exam I've already taken put me in such a dismal mood -- right before Thanksgiving break, no less.

It feels like every negative thought I've had in the last few months has suddenly dumped itself on me this week. It's one of those moments when everything you're doing just seems so pointless. It's one of those moments when you really start doubting yourself. I think everybody in college goes through these thoughts at some point, but it seems to hit me especially hard during the midterm season. I don't want to celebrate the upcoming break by partying with the tennis team. I just want to curl up under the blankets and sleep until winter.

Rocketship Underpants

it's been kind of a down day. gloomy weather. also the day right after a midterm, which is usually when i have anxiety attacks and nightmares about how my scores turn out. also one of those days when i really start doubting myself about everything. for instance, whether not i'm going to fuck up one of my classes again like i've done each semester. or whether or not i'm pursuing a career path solely for doing the "safe" and "expected" thing. or whether or not my dream is going to continue to exist only in my head, or if i'm going to look back seventy years from now and regret not having made the most out of my life.

the advice of "following your heart" is probably the most bullshit advice anyone can give you. because whether you like it or not, your brain is going to tune in and tell you that you're being a selfish prick if all you do is think of your own desires. the heart craves instant gratification; the brain cautions otherwise.

i wonder, is suicide the biggest -- no, only concern when it comes to treatment for depression? is depression treatment solely for the sake of combating suicidal tendencies? is level of depression gauged by how near/far the subject is from contemplating taking his own life? is it any better for someone to have no suicidal thoughts at all but live his life in a constant state of misery? or is that the status quo, the default setting of being -- to live in a predominant state of discontent?

ignore my rambling. thanksgiving is right around the corner and i'm feeling exhausted -- but not suicidal, thank you very much. for the record, despite my emo/morbid tendencies, i have never ever come close to having suicidal thoughts. you never forget the first death in your life, and i've never forgotten her, and how that November night eight years ago, her father took their lives away before taking away his own, and how she'd never grow up, never go through the rebellious teenage years of middle school, never worry about high school letter grades, never worry about high school prom dates, never fail her first driving test, never fall in love in a way that shakes up her entire world, never do any of the things that i complain about without ever once registering the fact that all of these failures are proof that i am still living and breathing here on this earth.

Frisco's World

Yeah, that's right. (Click to enlarge.)

Soundtrack

If my life had a soundtrack, this song would be playing each time I walked through the door.

la pluie violet

"A kiss in the mouth can become a kiss on the mouth. A hand on a shoulder can become a hand on the hips. A laugh on his lips can become a moan on mine. The moments in between these are often difficult to gauge, difficult to partition and subdivide. Time refuses to be translated into a tangible thing, time without a number or an ordinal assigned to it, is often said to be 'lost.' In a city that always looks better in a memory, time lost can make the night seem eternal and full of stars."

-- The Book of Salt by Monique Truong

---

"I only want to see you, only want to see you in the purple rain."

You were standing on the white ceramic tiles of my bathroom floor, your eyes glancing up at the mirror to see my startled reflection staring back. It had been a year since I last saw you. I have dreamt of this moment a million times -- my favorite was the one where I'd make my grand entrance at the annual New Year's Eve party at Rachelle's place and nobody, not even you, would be able to keep their eyes off of me, entranced by how much I'd changed and how beautiful I'd become -- but I'd never imagined that I'd see you standing in my own house, Narcissus before the bathroom mirror with the same wild tangle of hair and look of self-induced lust, a magnetism that could both attract and repel at once.

I didn't want you to look at me. Not yet. My transformation was incomplete; my hair was still only partially tamed, my body still being whittled down, my face still marked with unhealed incisions. I still looked like the same person we both once knew and both wanted to forget.

Mila, I was waiting to hear you say, but you didn't speak.

Time diffused, and this time we were in the same room again, separated by a pane of glass. I could hear the shower water running, feel the steam scurrying up the glass in wispy tail-like curls. The fog shrouded us -- this way, we could see without seeing, look without looking, watch without watching. I could see the haze of your body's movements, unpeeling the layers one by one until the petals of fabric lay at your feet like the withering of the Beast's enchanted rose. But whose death had come? Were you the Beast, or was I?

Everything was purple all around me. Violets, lavender, irises engulfed the room in a cloud of perfume as you walked under the water and let it drench your skin. The scent of the flowers rooted into your nestle of hair, entwining with the rising steam that climbed higher and higher. I could feel your eyes tracing my movements through the fogged glass as I let the petals unfurl, one by one until I was as bare and vulnerable as I had once allowed myself to be before you. The water drummed across my shoulders like fingertips, trailing down my back in a lazy trickle. Bottles and bottles of fragmented body wash stood aligned on the ceramic tiles, glass soldiers each uniformed in a varying shade of purple. I pressed the cool gel against the heat of bare skin, watched the translucent purple effervesce, bubbling and slipping away like a tumble of ephemeral pearls.

For a moment, you had reeled me in again -- without even saying a word, without even a single touch, you had caught me in your fist like a flopping, gasping fish.

And when I woke up from this dream, I hated you all over again.

My biggest fear

... is dying before I accomplish everything I want to do in life.

antoinette

You make me sick.

i can't concentrate in class

not when
you're sitting in front of me and all i can think about are
those shoulders

what it would feel like
to see if my wingspan is enough
to cocoon them

and it gets worse in the line at the salad bar when i watch you take
spinach
mushrooms
red peppers
carrots
cheddar
olives
(why does memory work this well in the most trivial moments and fail so epically in the classroom?)

and each time
i go back to my room
look in the mirror
i see myself --

(the girl with the magenta shark backpack
the gold converse shoes
the heart-shaped hoop earrings)

-- pathetically, unforgettably flashy, like
a neon sign blaring to the world that

I want you to look only at me.

gertrudestein

"She, though, carries herself as if she is an object of desire. She carries herself as if she is her own object of desire. Such self-induced lust is addictive in its effect. Prolonged exposure makes those around them weak and helpless."

-- The Book of Salt by Monique Truong

Broken Arrow

There's a splinter here, you know. It's like that tree I once saw -- the knife that had been embedded in its trunk was almost being swallowed by the outgrowth. But you know it's still there. It's not going to go away.

I took the Myers-Brigg Test the other day. I'm an INTJ. Introverted. iNutuitive. Thinking. Judging. I value intelligence, clarity, knowledge and competence, and expect the same of others. It's no wonder that this follows the rest of the personality description:

"Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.

This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship)."

The modern-day game of courtship is a game for daredevils who dangle their hearts on a string around their necks. Why risk the possibility of having it stolen or battered, or falling loose to the ground with no one there to catch? Why risk the chance of it growing so heavy with misery -- you're not pretty enough, hot enough, skinny enough, enough enough -- that the weight of it strangles you? Because it's fun. Slaves to their internal chemical processes -- the adrenaline, the testosterone -- aim for the high, disregard the low.

There's a INTJ quote I've posted on my wall. "Low tolerance for rampant emotionalism." The roommate and I had quite a laugh over it, not just because of the cynical wording -- but because of how truly it applies to me.

Let's face it -- I'm not meant for it. I seek logic and clarity where there is none. The roommate told me that if she ever saw me preening on the arm of a guy, she would think I'd lost my mind. I am a control freak in the sense that I want to have complete control over myself -- though some friends have joked otherwise, I have no desire to learn what kind of drunk I am.

How do you know if it's love? Some romantic chump is going to say like a whimsical fairy godmother, "You just know." That's not how the INTJ works. She has a mental checklist of physical and intellectual attributes, she'll make an internal pro-con list, have a debate with the brain and the heart where the brain usually wins. Even then, nothing may come out of it -- around the object of interest, the INTJ will freeze up, stiffen, and act like a total zero-confidence idiot -- or actively avoid said object to avoid another deep freeze.

As far as I know, there's only been one time where my heart knocked out the brain -- and even then, there is nothing to tell, save the shred of the arrow that's still lodged within me.

A reminder.

T.O.P.-mas

This fourth day of November in the year 2010 marks the 23rd year since the birth of the King of All Things Badass, and he has a message for you. Listen well.

AT LAST, WE MEET AGAIN MY PRECIOUS MORTALS! Yes, He has returned and now walks amongst thee as the living champion of badassitude! So let us depart, my badasslings -- zip up thine hoodies and don thine shades, for all shall be revealed on this day of celebration and merriment.


To be Badass, my pretty, foolish mortals, is not to simply don a studded face mask or hide thy face behind a pair of shades. This, the heretical imposter, Pastel Offspring of Spock, learned too little too late as I smote him with my Glare of Badassitude near seven moons ago. No -- Badassery, it is a way of living and a way of being. Those atrocities who call themselves followers of Badassery -- perhaps thou hast seen them indulge in facial piercings or practice their sneers in front of the bathroom mirror -- their lives are but empty vessels, sucked dry by vanity and pretension.

To be a Badass, my children, is to act upon thine principles and blaze thy trail, even if the beaten path tempts thee with luring promises of safety and acceptance.

Take the tale of David Carter, hailing from the American state of Indiana, who took matters into his own hands when his stepdaughter and other neighborhood children were frequently bullied and cussed at by a vile teenage girl in the neighborhood. How many times hast thou read the tale of To Kill a Mockingbird and secretly wished that Scout had Atticus' approval to defend his honor so that she would have really taught Cecil Jacobs and Francis Hancock a lesson for calling her father a "n----- lover"? Atticus may be a noble father, but he who tells his children to keep their fists down when the family honor is at stake is no true Badass.

But David Carter did not tell his daughter to reclaim the family honor with a good neighborhood pummel at the hands of her fists. He did not tell his young daughter to soil her hands with bloodshed. No, he approached the wrongdoer at the bus stop wielding an electric razor and threatened to shave off her hair should she ever bother the little Lady Carter again.

This, my lost lambs, is the way of a Badass.

Suppose thou sees a restaurant employee hurling racial insults at an ethnic customer. Wouldst thou eat thy food quietly and ignore the indecency unfurling before your eyes? Or wouldst thou stand up and make the offender eat his own words -- or if not, shove a table napkin down his throat instead? Wouldst thou speak for those who cannot find their own voice?

Listen. This is the Voice of T.O.P. -- the one unlike any other on this Earth. The key to Badassery lies neither in aerodynamically spiked hair nor pointed glares. He Who is Badass defends those in need of a savior and whoops the ass of those who brag and taunt behind the protection of legality. He Who is Badass shall bear the punishment (be it a felony or misdemeanor charge) in thine stead as thine savior.

And with that, I bid thee farewell, my badasslings. Until my return --

The One and Only Idol,
T.O.P.

Far East Movement

Everyone who's a college student has probably heard Far East Movement's "Like a G6" -- if not, perhaps they're a social hermit who never leaves the dorm room. I really like this song though -- "Rocketeer" -- with OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder and cameos by some people you may or may not recognize.

It took me awhile -- probably longer than it should have, given the group's telling name -- to realize that Far East Movement is a group of Asian-American artists. But I think most of people would be surprised to learn that the group responsible for "Like a G6" is comprised of Asian-Americans. It has all the catchiness of the Billboard chart-toppers you'd attribute to white and black dance/rap artists -- hell, can you even name another Asian artist on the Billboard charts? (Bruno Mars, perhaps -- but he's half-Puerto Rican, half-Filipino)

Even looking at the Youtube comments for their videos, it seems some people don't take well the idea of Asian-Americans making this kind of insanely popular hit. They make fun of the fact that the members of Far East Movement are wearing sunglasses in their music videos, speculating it has something to do with their "Asian eyes." Once they learn that their favorite song is performed by Asians, they take an 180 degree turn and start bashing on the song.

As I've already discussed in a post back in September, ever since I started taking my Asian-American Lit class, I've become acutely aware of the social perception of Asians, and the recent rise of Far East Movement is especially eye-catching. Obviously, it's not like Asians are completely rejected -- you still have Youtube stars like Nigahiga, Wongfu, and Kevjumba who have humongous followings on the Internet. But at the same time, they haven't reached the same place as Far East Movement, who has done something extraordinary for an Asian-American group.

And I don't like this group just because we share the same racial background. I truly do think they are talented bunch -- their songs STICK. It's exciting to see if they have what it takes to carve a solid place on the music charts.

Tough Love

Pouvez-vous aimer quelqu'un qui est complètement faux pour vous?
Can you love someone who is completely wrong for you?

is love such a good thing if you become so consumed by it that you make yourself sick from it?

how much of who we become is influenced by the expectations of those we love and want to love us in return -- to the point that when you're together, you end up being somebody you don't want to be?

WHIP YO HAIR GURL

I love this bird.

Salt

When I grow up, I want to be badass.

Maybe not a spy, but I want badass hair.

Hiatus

Sorry... no posts until my laptop is fixed.

Augustus Harley

Dear Emma Courtney,

I don't want your letters.

These parchment rats infest my house, carrying the plague of your delusional profession of love. One after another, they multiply regardless of whatever I do. Should I respond to you in a single line, you send off another one, insisting I explain myself when I have already done so quite economically. Should I choose to ignore the letter, another one arrives nearly twice its size, demanding why I have not responded. I have never been one to take pleasure in reading the myths of ancient Greece, but I must confess I feel as if I am battling the Lernaean Hydra, for it seems this intercourse between me and you will never cease, until I am left faced with a hundred of your immortal leering serpentine letters that will not hesitate the strip the flesh from my bones and deliver them to you.

Your absurd logic amuses and irritates me dearly, for I confess I have never met someone as full of inflated confidence in the matters of romance as you. You attempt to rationalize the utterly irrational concept of love and come to the conclusion that the fact that I do not reciprocate your ardor must mean that I hold a prior engagement with another, and that whoever she is clearly cannot love me as much as you do. Apparently, it has yet to cross your mind that perhaps I simply do not find you attractive at all.

I must thank you, however, for providing me with a new, fashionable method of entertaining guests that my wife and I wait on from time to time. I have collected all of your letters -- each and every one of them -- in a wicker basket from which we take turns drawing a letter out and picking out the most delightfully nonsensical sentences we can find. With the massive quantity of letters you have sent me over the months, I am gleefully certain that we shall not be deficient of merriment and laughter for quite some time.

Disregard the first sentence of my letter. I assure you, I (and my social acquaintances) can hardly wait to hear from you again.

Yours,
Augustus Harley

-----------------------------------------
One of the books I've read for my Jane Austen class is titled The Memoirs of Emma Courtney by Mary Hays. I must confess that I did not enjoy that novel nearly as much as my classmates, for I was dying to knock some sense into the self-absorbed girl all throughout the second half of the book. Yes, I am well aware of the parallels between Emma Courtney's letters and the former incarnation of my own blog. However, I would like to believe I was not nearly as self-delusional as this girl.

//SPOILER ALERT//

I sympathized with Augustus Harley until the sickeningly melodramatic moment at the end of the book when he confesses before he kicks the bucket that he has always loved Emma Courtney. Hence, I would like to pretend that that incident never happened, and that instead Augustus Harley sent off an acerbic letter to Emma Courtney written quite in the style of the one I have written on his behalf.

Community Service

It's midterm season. Feeling stressed?





You're welcome.

A la folie

i'll admit it's cute. but as much as you wish someone will one day say those words to you, as much as you wish that someday someone will confess that he's fallen just as madly and deeply for you as you have for him -- doesn't it scare you even a little bit?

we idolize this kind of love -- passionate, feverish, intoxicating, sensual yet senseless. we speak of romeo and juliet, sid and nancy, nana and ren, in reference to the most beautiful, unconquerable form of that four letter word. is this what we are all searching for? for a raging madness whose effects are only potentially cured by time?

there's a story of a girl. more than anything, she prized her independence. she never compromised herself, never mixed with alcohol or drugs in fear of losing self-control. yet she fell just as hard as anyone else. the boy and the girl were revered as the perfect pair, their relationship idolized by adoring fangirls who had been fed all their life to aspire to this all-consuming love. but she hadn't wanted this. she didn't want to be another lovedrunk addict, craving for another shot of euphoria, utterly dependent and defenseless. you don't necessarily choose to be ill. you don't necessarily choose to be afflicted.

we think there's something romantic about violent passion. it's not just a coincidence that they almost all end in tragedy.

Wild Animus

Indulge me for a moment while I take a break from my studying.

See that book cover? I'm going to start off with a little anecdote.

So on Monday, I was heading toward the bus stop to meet my friend S when a couple of strangers on campus reached out and handed me a novel. They had boxes of these books and were handing them out to passersby for free, so I thought, "Well, why not? Who doesn't like books?" When I met up with S, it turned out they had handed her one too.

We finally took our seats on the bus, and that's when I first read the summary on the back of the book. Since I'm such a nice person, I'm going to transcribe it for you right here:

Wild Animus tracks the reckless quest of Ransom Altman, a young Berkeley graduate who - roused by his literary heroes and love for his girlfriend Lindy - resolves to live in a new world of "inexhaustible desire."

Ransom's deepening identification with the wild mountain ram, whose passion and wisdom he seeks, drives the young lovers north - first to Seattle, then to the remote Alaskan wilderness. Alone on the unforgiving ridges of Mt. Wrangell, his imagination increasingly unhinged, Ransom begins to devise and act out a dangerous animal mythos, which he documents in a first-person manuscript, and in songs or "chants" that detail his transformation and pursuit by a pack of strangely familiar wolves.

The feverish hunt leads from the wilds to civilization and back again. And when the lovers return to brave the perilous mountain together, the truth behind Ransom's imagined transformation emerges. What they discover in those frozen heights threatens their love as well as their sanity and their lives.

Is Ransom inspired by a transcendent truth, or prey to a misguided fantasy? As his grip on reality weakens, the reader shares Ransom's fears, his hopes, and his extraordinary discoveries.

Wild Animus is a search for the primordial and a journey to the breaking point. It is a story of love and surrender, of monomania - of striving, at all costs, for a bliss beyond fear.

Okay. Now for some reading comprehension, kiddos!

1. What is meant by "inexhaustible desire"? How is this to be achieved by migrating to Alaska?
2. Why is the protagonist chased by a pack of wolves? What constitutes as "strangely familiar"? Do they look like Balto?
3. Heck, what in the blazes is this story about?

I will admit, as someone with a deep interest in literature and writing, I am predisposed to skepticism when it comes to books acquired by a publisher in San Mateo -- a city near my hometown in the Bay Area -- especially when it is a truth universally known that most of the major publishing houses reside in New York City. My first thought was vanity publishing, which would explain why the author would be doling out free copies of his book on a college campus. Not that I have anything against vanity press -- my mom wrote and illustrated two children's picture books, which have been great teaching tools for her art classes and neat gifts for some of our young acquaintances. Curiosity piqued, as soon as I returned to my dorm I resorted to the paranormal-heroine-with-a-crush-on-a-mysterious-guy's first line of action -- Google.

My first hit was on Amazon, to my great surprise. Even more amazing was that the book had garnered 129 reviews -- the majority of which rated the book only one star. The few that gave the book five stars were mainly tongue-in-cheek, like this one:

I, like many others, received this book for free. But unlike others, I found this book a delight to have around the house.

It served quite well as a monitor riser for my LCD screen.

My friend and I needed a book to add weight for a tofu press.

Pages 200 to 225 made wonderful firestarters when covered in paraffin wax.

One night, we took the cover and walked around the downtown Seattle area hiding our faces behind it and saying "Wooo, wolf eyes, scawwy wolf eyes", while three people behind us kept asking people "Have you seen the walruses?" in Scooby-Doo voices.

One night we drank too much and began reading the worst prose we could find in voices like Darth Vader and Mickey Mouse over a microphone to loud techno music. People apparently loved this prose more than Lynne Cheney's book on lesbian sexual relationships.

The cat ate pages 123 to 127 when we ran out of catgrass for him to chew.

The door below sometimes slams shut when coming in and out of the apartment, so rather than going out to buy a doorstop, we use the book!

Every so often you can pick a random phrase out of it that makes you howl with laughter.

Handing it to someone who's taken more than six hits of acid in their lifetime and asking them whether it's accurate in the description is highly amusing - especially when you get their faces to screw up like you've just asked them to kill the baby Jesus with a rusty spork.

It is an excellent candidate for book frisbee on a sunny afternoon in the park.

I take it with me when camping in the case that I run out of toilet paper.

Gosh, I'm sure I could find more excellent uses for this most entertaining book. If paper cuts were something desired, I'm sure you could add that as a bonus, since the cheap paper on the books provides HUNDREDS of those to the reader.

However, you might not want to expose your cortex to the language. It puts me in mind of the Douglas Adams characters, the Vogons, whose poetry is only the third worst in the galaxy. That, in of itself, is a distinction.

Like the movie Showgirls, this book is so jaw-droppingly bad that it's an entertaining read just to see how badly a book COULD be written. It's not just a gigantic cliche, it's a cliched parody of every 1960s novel or poem written by every poet or writer seeking truth within the American experience.

So if nothing else, it's a marvelous book to be used for anything except reading.

With a little more Internet snooping, I soon gathered a couple of facts:

• It's not just a novel. If you examine the back cover closely, a note at the bottom says: "This novel is part of a larger storytelling experiment that includes three music CDs. Experienced as a whole, the music expresses the emotional core of the story, and the novel serves as its narrative shell."
• This book was first published in 2004. Since then, the book has been distributed for free all over the country (you'd be surprised -- it's literally popped up everywhere) and even in cities like Tokyo and Amsterdam. It's been six years, and they're still going at it -- now in Durham, North Carolina.
• The author has been very successful in the IT industry -- which would explain how he's been able to finance the mass distribution of this book for the last six years.
• In short, according to the Amazon reviewers, this book is essentially about a guy with an LSD addiction who hallucinates that he is a ram and dies in the Alaskan wilderness.
  

Now, I haven't read the book yet and don't particularly have any intention of doing so (at least, not until winter break, but even then I have other books much higher on my to-read list). I will however, explain why I already have a sour impression of this book.

My friend S and my roommate became well acquainted with my dislike of this book without having ever read it -- my roommate thought I was being mean and overly critical, while S is an engineer who admitted that she was ambivalent and really didn't care about the book. I, however, am somebody who is well-read about the publishing industry and is also a writer -- therefore, is it any surprise that I have much more beef with this book?

A lot of the Amazon users bashed the book and complained about how they wasted their time. I'm not following that vein -- honestly, if a book is that bad, I usually skip to the end or Wikipedia it and then just stop reading. Really, I think there's so many negative reviews simply because it's fun to bash things as a mob.

What DOES irk me about this whole business is the mass distribution part of this whole affair. My roommate said she feels sorry for the author for receiving all that negative feedback and says I'm being too harsh. And from a writer's perspective, I sympathize with receiving such criticism -- but only to an extent. If he had distributed the book so enthusiastically for a year and then recognized that many people did not like his story or writing style, then okay -- I get it. All writers inevitably face criticism, and it can be brutal for first-time writers. But the fact that six years later, this book is STILL being distributed for free? What in the world is he trying to achieve? It's one thing to learn from the mistakes of your first book to motivate you to improve your writing -- it's another to keep pushing the same first book.

Keep in mind that as far as I know, this book was published via vanity press or POD. That means the author did not undergo the query process, which is essentially a screening process for hopeful writers. If your manuscript's not good enough, no agent is going to help you get it published. While it can be very discouraging, the brutality of rejection is what forces the most determined writers to grow and hone their skills.

Perhaps from a marketing perspective, this guy should be lauded. Articles and blog posts have been written about him since 2004 -- hell, even I'm writing about this book. However, from my perspective as a writer, this guy doesn't understand what it means to be a writer. Your first novel might be crap and it might be ridiculed, but writing is an unending learning process. I've had many setbacks with EP, but it's thrilling to think about how much I've learned and grown since I first created the story in 2007. Rather than writer, the author strikes me as either a businessman or somebody trying to make a critique/point about publicity and marketing.