Christmas Is For Family

Some people say you can't choose your family...

those people have never been 

to the Almendral-Nemenzo-Ver household

did you know there are two different paths that are able to give your brain the signal to smile? smiling for a picture comes from a different place then smiling when you genuinely are happy. i think tonight i'm smiling from the genuine place.

happy holidays everyone!

its 4am

i miss europe

a lot.

that is all. 

tuesday

san francisco for christmas shopping with cecilia. san mateo to drive my mom to dinner. fremont for keith's surprise 21st birthday dinner. then santa cruz to watch tv with sharon and make video posts on facebook for our friends. haha. 

sixteen.

its winterbreak and i have more time on my hands than i know what to do with. today, i spent some time going through my unpublished posts. some of them were purposely unpublished, but some of them i never finished like this 16 facts one. i got tagged on facebook for it over the summer, but i try to avoid writing facebook notes because of the stalkerfeed. so enjoy! (this means you daniel luu! haha jk)

1. my family was going to call me Alexa instead of Maia when I was born. 
2. my brother, sister, and i were all born on the first of the month. (april, january, and february) AND i have a half sister and cousin with the same birthday as me. 
3. as of december 2008, my writing has been published :)
4. i've been to 9 countries (as in actually traveled them, not just stopovers) and its not enough yet!
5. i've shaken hands with two former presidents. One was Clinton when my mom and I waited for hours outside of his book signing on Telegraph in Berkeley. He's really pink. The second one was Corazon Aquino, the first female president of the Philippines. It was a monumentous moment for be because at the time (6th grade) she was my hero. haha
6. i used to sing... in sophomore year of high school i won first place in the district solo competition for classical voice.. and i was part of the 4 person ensemble that sang the national anthem at graduation. 
7. i HAVE to spin my plate before i start eating. i have no idea why, its pretty OCD of me. 
8. for the past three weeks i've only been using spoons to eat, no forks. again, i don't know why. 
9. i eat really ridiculously slow because my family does... i feel like i'm starting to sound like a fat kid with all these facts about eating habits. 
10. as i get older i get more and more annoyed with running late for things. i'm definitely in the wrong ethnicity for a pet peeve like this one since filipinos are always late.
11. 95% of the time i knock out immediately when my head hits the pillow.. and i don't move at all when i sleep most times.. and i recently found out that i snore!  ahhhh. (sorry dan. haha) 
12. a lot of details about my family's life has been shared in my mom's monthly column, then eventually as an entire chapter in her book. its weird cuz when i'm at book/magazine events with my mom, she'll introduce me as her youngest daughter and people will respond "oh are you Maia? i raised my kids on the beatles too" or other random facts like that. 
13. i used to spend almost every thanksgiving in Eugene, Oregon with my (ex) step-dad's parents. 
14. i went through a stage in like 5th grade where i didn't think blonde people really existed. haha. but now i live in la jolla and i know they really do. 
15. i'm really, really sentimental especially when it comes to my friends. i remember little details really well and most of the time i write about them in my diary. haha
16. a lot of times i'm a wimp when it comes to my career plans. when people ask me "oh, what do you want to do with urban studies and planning?" i tend to give them whatever answer i think they want to hear (i.e. policy planning, architecture, etc.) but i'm slowly getting over that weird fear. what i really want to do is work with an NGO or the united nations on their millennium development goals, especially in the education sector. 

finals epiphany, fall 08.

i'm from the suburbs and if you've ever seen the opening credits to the show Weeds, you should know that shit is genius. Neighbors mow their lawns, get their coffee, and go to work crisp, clean, and synchronized perfectly framing the dreadful monotony of suburbia. by season 3 or something they add a spin by changing the theme song every episode to different genres of music (jazz, classical, latin, reggae) to imply that perhaps there is something different (and there is, duh! its what the entire show is about). fucking genius i tell you!

well, san leandro wasn't exactly on the same level as the neighborhood in weeds, but all suburbs harness this idealization of the American dream -- safety, nuclear families, station wagons, children, dogs. you get the picture. 

and even though i grew up there, i was always aware that i lived in an unconventional household on the outside of the white-picket fence lifestyle. this created this huge contradiction for me. by unconventional household, its more than my single parent household, what i'm referring to is the exchange of ideas happening in our home. even from elementary school, every idea i brought home was constantly challenged. i guess in a way i grew up trained to question "the norm."i remember there was a time when i really wanted those glow in the dark block things you always saw on infomercials and i'd beg my mom for them every single day until one day i was bombarded with questions from my sister, mom, and brother. "why do you want those? is it because it seems like everyone has them? if you don't get them, does that change who you are? would your friends see you differently? will you be happier with them than you would without them?" i was then told if i had an answer to these questions, then my mom would be happy to buy the blocks for me. i was six years old, i never said a word about those blocks again -- but it taught me to ask why. 

this reminds me of a conversation i had with my brother when i started high school. his point was that getting an A, at least in an area like ours where the public school system SUCKS, was all about how well you could parrot off your teacher's answers. it was rarely based on any critical thinking, in fact most teachers got annoyed if you questioned them. 

the failure of our public education system is that 99% of classes teach kids what to think, not how to think. 

but i'm guilty of falling into this trap. i was an overachiever in high school.. doing what it took for a good grade so i could graduate on the honor roll and go to a good university. it meant i was successful right? i memorized everything from the periodic table of elements to the preamble of the bill of rights so i could ace that test, none of which i can remember now. 

like i said, this kind of thinking created a big contradiction in me. here i am at this prestigious university, totally unmotivated to cram for my cog sci final tomorrow. i mean, i have the concepts. i can tell you what mu rhythms and mirror neurons have to do with autistic children, i just need to memorize what proteins connect to what receptor to reach action potential or some shit. i'll admit i don't have the best transcript and tonight i finally realized its not cuz i'm lazy or too dumb for this school. its because i'm unwilling to pretend i learned shit just to get the grade. its because i know that whatever my transcript looks like after four years in this place, it is not a reflection of how intelligent i am, nor will it foreshadow how successful i'll be. so in conclusion, fuck you cog sci final. i'm going to do research on immigration policies instead and analyze which one would work best in the united states. sucka!

Never Will I Ever

NEVER WILL I EVER TAKE 3 CLASSES AGAIN! especially if i'm taking only two for a grade. i most definitely should have known better. i can only work under pressure, otherwise i don't work at all. this quarter was so easy that i just got lazy and now i'm doing badly. UGH! i suck at school and at times like this i wonder wtf i'm doing here in the first place!

but not really. 

either stand tall or just sit the fuck down

- "double trouble" the roots ft. mos def

currently on repeat: Things Fall Apart by The Roots. 

soooo sick. i've been reading the lyrics like they were poetry.

i haven't heard a record this good since like.... the miseducation. haha

really though. its beautiful, listen now!