Hyped!

I got the itinerary for the new school year. I'm so stoked. I'm teaching the grades I want and I get first period prep--which means I get to sleep in if I wanted. The only crappy thing: I don't have my own classroom, so I'm traveling to four different rooms. Sucks to be the new teacher!

Lana Is a Tease

After watching numerous episodes of Smallville, I'm slowly becoming irked by the character of Lana Lang. I have nothing against Kristin Kruek. Kristin is okay, but the writers have completely created a tease.

From my understanding of the Superman comics, Lana was the girl that Clark desired from afar. She was unattainable. In the series, seeing Clark and Lana become good friends, date, break up, and still be friends seems plausible. But we all know that Clark will never get Lana, and even though he may still have deep feelings for her, he keeps his distance. Lana, on the other hand, seems to be the one who can't get over Clark. Lana was Miss Popular in high school--a cheerleader dating the star quarterback and hanging with the popular crowd. She can have any guy she wants--as proven by episodes where several guys have asked her out. So why does she suddenly want Clark, a guy she barely noticed in high school--a guy, according to the comics, hardly cared about.

She, too, has a fixation on Clark. Always, she's prodding him about wanting to know the truth; always whenever she's in trouble, she looks to Clark; always when he rescues her, she prods in some indirect manner about why they are not together. Always she has to ask "do you love me?" As if his numerous rescues didn't answer her question already! She tortures Clark. She offers herself to him when he's trying to keep his distance and move on. She pleads with him with her eyes when he rejects her. This is not the unattainable distant Lana from afar of the original comics anymore, but a new "you're-in-my-face-Lana."

In other melodramas, when a couple breaks up even though they still love each other, they still go their separate ways. They get together eventually, but only after some dire and drastic episode which leads them to admit their love and finally be happy. How many dire and drastic episodes do Clark and Lana need? I know that the creators of Smallville are only posing these storylines as a hypothetical and substory to the original comics, but I don't find a continuum anymore. When Clark grows up to become a journalist, he can't mope around longing for Lana as if he never had her, as if she were the girl he could have had. He had more than several chances to be with her. And he can't argue that he couldn't be with her because he could never tell her the truth about himself--that has become his own issue. He has no one to blame but himself if he loses her. As a character, Lana has proven that she is reliable and maybe even keep a weighty secret, such as Clark's true identity. She's been in several situations where she had chances to witness Clark's powers that any person with a brain can put two and two together. If it were Chloe, she would have figured it out by now.

Thank God, Lois is coming in next season.

So Much Junk!

I didn't stay in my new apartment after I moved my stuff up there. I decided to come back home to clean out my old room. I even rearranged the desk. As I reshelve the books, sort the files and papers I've collected, I realized how much junk I've collected over the years. And I don't mean those tiny sentimental souvenirs, but other things. Being a teacher, I never noticed I amassed a large collection of blank notebooks and slips of paper with notes on them.

I went through the desk drawers and I started sifting through the trash and whatnot that's been sitting inside there. I donated one whole box of books and half a box of clothes and purses, and I'm still moving other things up to my new place. The only thing holding me back now is the desk junk on my floor.

But once everything is clean, I'm going to feel a big weight lift off my shoulders. I won't collect shit like that again and let it accumlate in my new apartment. I've learned an important lesson since my return from Japan: less is good.

Inland Empire or Bust!

Moving is a bitch... even with a U-Haul.

Men and Sports

As I watch the scoreboards for the BF's favorite football and baseball teams, sometimes I think this might give people the impression that I like those teams, too, because those are the only teams that I pay attention to. The more I look at the numbers that distinguish the winners from the losers, the more I wish I had some sort of ammo to email the BF and tell him that his teams are losing against my teams. The thing this: I don't have any favorite teams. My emails would be that much more fiery and interesting if I could just add a bit of "neener neener neener."

I admit that I had fun watching Super Bowl 2003. And it is kind of fun to watch his teams lose only to see him get moody.

Pictures, Anyone?

Just testing

Reasons Why I'm Happy To Be Moving Out Soon

• I can't stand it when my sister is downloading 25-minute anime episodes on a dial-up network.
• My sister is a drama queen when she's home, and I can't stand her loud "pay-attention-to-me" drama voice... especially when she's watching a DVD and she makes running comments to the air. She demands attention even when no one is there.
• My mother is too emotional to the point where I can't argue reasonably without her resorting to, "You hurt my feelings" as a way for her to tell me to just shut up and let her have the last point.
• I can't stand it when my parents are up past midnight watching TV while I'm reading quietly in my room, and then they come in to tell me why I'm not asleep yet. Why aren't they?
• My mom can't do anything by herself and she needs one of us to accompany her at all times, especially when doing errands.
• My mother keeps telling me to clean up my room. What's the point of cleaning it when I'm trying to move out?
• I admit I'm a completely selfish bitch, but I don't demand much except that I be left alone... which in this house, you're made to feel guilty about.
• My father's growing interest in new age music is starting to grate.
• That damn Filipino channel is beyond over-the-line fucking annoying.
• Being holed up with my family is like being forced to endure a painful family vacation.
• I have no privacy whatsoever.

Don't get me wrong: I like my family, but even my tolerance and patience have their limits. I thought that having one last month would be enough of a vacation, but if I had known staying at home for the last month would be this irritable, I would have made an effort to move out at the beginning of the month. Then I'd be at my new place by the end of the first week of August and would have had three weeks of absolute silence--my idea of a true vacation. Instead, I'm moving out this Friday and will only have about a week and a half of a true vacation before my new job begins.

Regrets are annoying.

Strange Link

I like Benno Fuhrman, and as I was doing a Google search on him, I came upon the Bob the Angry Flower website. My jaw almost dropped, for I had bought two comics and a poster from the creator of Bob the Angry Flower, Stephen Notley himself (and he autographed it!), at the San Diego Comic Convention last month. He did a review of "The Order," which I had recently seen on DVD two weeks ago. I still have mixed feelings about that movie, to which Stephen Notley, pretty much summed up my own feelings.

The only thing that puzzled me about "The Order" was the title. I felt it was misleading because it didn't fit the movie.

But Benno was still cute.

Quite Intellectual

I started playing poker. I never knew how much it's similar to chess-- in a thinking way, from betting, bluffing, planning, and coming up with strategies. A friend of mine actually plays pool, and when I watch her play, I'm doing the thinking thing again.

I should get into more thinking games... pool, poker, golf...

And I won five bucks tonight. Small dough, but I daresay that's pretty good for my first time.

Superstition

There's a Filipino superstition that if you dream of your teeth falling out, then someone is going to die.

I had a nap this afternoon, in which I dreamt of all my teeth in the back of my mouth, just started falling out as I sat in a meeting on the first day of school at my new job. I went to the bathroom as my teeth fell out one by one into the sink. They jingled like brittle porcelain with their sharp roots still intact.

I wonder if each tooth that fell out of my mouth signifies one person's death, of if the number of teeth is insignificant to the number of people who might die. Morbid thoughts indeed.

Too Cheesy For Me

Last night I watched Dario Argento's "The Phantom of the Opera." I was kind of disappointed; the phantom wasn't even disfigured. Julian Sands is too handsome to be the Phantom, and he shouldn't have sported long hair. For some reason, long hair really displayed his extremely pointy nose.

Pain

"A Knight's Tale" is the most painful movie ever to watch.