mementos

I feel that I should post to prove that I'm still alive (I post, therefore I am). 

REALIZATIONS OF LATE:
* I do a lot of things because I feel I am obligated to do them to ensure future success in some amorphous career that does not yet have shape.  I minor in Econ.  I take Chinese.  I'm in the Journal of Politics and Society.  I take Statistics for Economics.  In other words, I resume build, and I hate it.
* On the other hand, I don't know if I'm truly cut out for a writing workshop/class either.  I don't even want to know what most people at Columbia write, fiction-wise.  Probably something along the lines of Kafka's Metamorphosis or a variant on the Amy Tan noun-infested cultural novel (The Kitchen God's Wife, The Bone Collector's Daughter).  Something serious and philosophical and/or demanding of respect for other reasons.  And me?  "Uh... I write fantasy."  "Are you serious?  Like Lord of the Rings?"  "Uh... no."  "Oh." 
* I really like arrogant guys.  I recognize this as a failing. 
* I somehow damaged my principal headphones because I tripped on their cord while they were plugged into my laptop, twice.  The second time evidently was too much.  Luckily the microphone still works, and I had a spare set.  Even more luckily, I didn't manage to actually pull my laptop off the desk... stupid motherfucker.  It's not like we can afford another one. 
* Chinese characters make my hands tingly.  I don't like to write them. 
* I think I've saddened my mother irreparably.  I told her last night that I want to work in Indonesia:

"I want to work in Indonesia, I want to live there." 
Silence cut across the phone and bounced across the small white-washed prison cell of a room, then floated out the windows into apartments across alley ways. 
"I made you sad, didn't I?"
"No..." her voice was hesitant.
"You're crying, aren't you?  I can hear you crying.  Big crystal tears rolling down your cheeks and splashing onto the floor, surrounding your feet, as you drown in your tears..."
"Oh, for heaven's sake.  I'm not crying."  She took a moment and then continued before I could tease her more, "I cried last night though."
"Why?"
"I was watching American Idol."
I started laughing.  She did too, but it sounded forced.  "And there was this one girl who had never cut her hair so it was down to her ankle, and was obviously very sweet.  And when she auditioned her mother, who also had this really long hair, was in the room with her.  I mean, they asked her to be there... the mother didn't want to be there.  So she sang, and she had a very sweet voice, but they told her no because she just stood there and sang, she wasn't American Idol material.  Of course, when she left the room she immediately burst into tears, and she went to her father, who was standing outside, who just held her stoically.  Not her mother.  She went to her father."
I bit my lip, wondering if she felt like I didn't go to her enough, if I wasn't grateful enough for what she did for me that she didn't want to do.
"And I just thought, how lucky she is that she has a father to do that for her." 
I sighed.  I didn't know what to say.  "Well... that's the way it goes," I said finally, listening carefully for any sounds that might indicate she was crying again.  "That's the way life is."  C'est la vie, as she would have said. 
And then, after another moment of silence, "I'm okay."  I laughed, considering.  "Well.  Sort of." 
But I had managed to make her laugh too, and although my thoughts briefly flickered back to weddings with no one to give me away, those thoughts were brief.