Get Inside My Head

Nope. I was wrong. Things could get worse. And oh boy, have they ever. Now, it seems, I've come down with food poisoning, of all things. Last night, I was up at 6 a.m. vomiting the contents of my innards all over the bathroom floor. (This was, of course, after enduring about 8 hours of constant stabbing pains in my stomach.) I don't think I'm quite fully recovered yet--still a little queasy. Hmph. At least I'm losing weight...

posted by Candace Pau 9/24/2000 03:21:35 PM

Um, yeah. So this year has apparently gotten off to a great start, what with my entire computer frying and a broken fuel line in the van and an ant infestation to welcome me back to school. Yes, believe it or not, my WHOLE GODDAMN computer fried...no more hard drive, no more CPU, no more DVD-ROM drive, no more zip drive, NO MORE. My 1000 mp3s...my poor, poor babies. Goddammit...there goes, like, 200 hours of my life I'll never get back. So now I have a really fast, new computer with jack shit on it. I don't even have Word. This is not good. Thank God for my laptop, although, not having anticipated a complete desktop meltdown, I only transferred about one-sixth of my mp3s. Damn, and all my old e-mails are gone. Joy of joys.

posted by Candace Pau 9/22/2000 02:52:23 PM

Yet More Blasting from the Past...

Okay, guess what? I'm writing again. But never fear loyal readers, I'm actually in Sacramento, having arrived without too much further incident (aside from getting miserably lost on the way here). It is now 12:39 a.m. on Tuesday the 19th of September.

En route, I came up with this fabulous idea for a PS grant project (and I'm not even being sarcastic this time, despite my use of the same adjective to describe both my idea and dorm food in the previous entry). I want to write a book on the evolution of the Chinatown culture in America. This would involve, I presume, traveling across the nation to various Chinatowns, a lot of historical research, a fair amount of interviewing locals, and, of course, a great deal of photojournalism and EATING. I, personally, think this is an absolutely brilliant concept, although my parents seem to disagree...go figure. I think what I like best about this idea, though, is that I can spend more time with my family that way, since I'll probably only need to spend two or three weeks on the road and the rest of the time working from home. Of course, I'll still be looking into other possibilities, but this one is sounding very good to me at present.

posted by Candace Pau 9/22/2000 02:51:54 PM

Blast from the Past:

Dear Weblog:

I'm writing this from the Randolph Collier Safety Rest Area just past the Oregon/California border. We're in the process of towing my car, my belongings and myself, among other things, to school. Sadly, our minivan seems ready to overheat and give out on us any second now...which explains why I'm sitting in this horrid 100 degree heat typing a blog entry that I have absolutely no means of posting. This isn't leaving us much better off than we were with the U-Haul last year--although it IS nicer not having to sit with my feet soaking in 3 inches of water from the air conditioning, I'll give you that.

Anyway, this whole going back to school experience is rather surreal at the moment, which I'm sure is not such a good thing, since midterms and finals are, in fact, quite real. But hopefully I'll be able to settle in better once I'm all moved in and back to gorging myself on that fabulous dorm food. Yeah.

At present, we're about 275 miles from Sacramento, so our estimated arrival time is probably going to be somewhere around 10 p.m. (now being 3:42 p.m. on Monday, the 18th of September...happy birthday Ma).

Hey, here's a question for you: what goes "VRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrr...VRRRRRrrrrrrrr...VRRRRRRRrrrrr..." (repeat 5,000,000 times or until your head explodes, whichever comes first)? Answer: some guy on a freakin' lawnmower riding circles around me at an ear-shattering decibel level. Not to mention the leafblower guy who is headed straight this way. What a fun place, kids!

Okay...looks like we're getting the signal to get back on the road. Cross your fingers...hopefully I won't have to write in this thing again until I'm safely in my dorm room.

posted by Candace Pau 9/22/2000 02:51:26 PM

So...this is it. I feel like I'm about to jump off of the Empire State Building. Wait, no...that would be too quick and simple. I feel like I'm about to gouge out my heart with a rusted spoon. There. That's better.

I thought that freshman year went by fast, but that was an eon compared to how quickly this summer has gone. A heartbeat ago I was rushing off the plane, eager to embrace my parents, my cat, and, of course, my bed again. Now I'm trudging back to school, trying desperately to turn my life around. No more of this laziness and procrastination for me...no more 15 hour mp3 downloading sessions, no more all-day Real World marathons, no more shopping sprees, no more late night creeps, no more dough, we can't even kick it no more... um, yeah. And definitely no more getting Ruff Endz songs stuck in my head because that was really, really bizarre.

Anyway, I think I'm even going to miss the lab, as weird as that seems. So much so that I might stop in and help out some over winter break. School will be good for me, though, after a summer of little discipline (unless you count my devotion to digging up every last shred of information about soulDecision as discipline). Freshman year was something of a disaster, academically speaking, so it's about time that I get this show on the road and start displaying the drive that I know I possess (somewhere...in the deep, dark recesses of my subconscious).

Dunno if I'm going to update as frequently anymore...not that I was all that diligent about keeping up with this thing during the summer, but if anything, I'll probably be even less regular with my postings. But, hey, that's a good sign, right? =)

posted by Candace Pau 9/15/2000 05:44:21 PM

Uh-oh...Candace has a new object of affection...

I just discovered Marat Safin today, watching him beat Sampras in straight sets in the US open. To say he has a hell of a tennis game would be the understatement of the century; honestly, he is probably the future of men's singles. And on top of that, he's young, tall, charming, and, well, you know...gorgeous. Don't you just hate how some people have it all?



But, actually, what's really on my mind post-discovery, is that I'm older than I thought. As weird as this seems, it's true. For some reason, I always felt like 20 (which is Marat's age, incidentally) was a long way off. You know, it's like there's a line between childhood and adulthood, and I tended to draw it at 20--the end of your teen years, right?--so 20 just seemed much older to me. But suddenly, I realized that I am not too far from 20...I mean, I'm almost 19 and a bunch of my friends are turning 20 in a matter of weeks. What's alarming is that although I'm about to cross this line into adulthood, numerically speaking, I'm not sensing any sort of transition in terms of maturity or independence. In fact, for all intents and purposes, I still feel a lot like a kid. I turn to my parents when I don't know what to do. I don't manage my own money. I can't even imagine being totally self-sufficient. Hell, I'm a soulDecision groupie, for crying out loud...I act more like I'm 12 than 21. I dunno...I guess I've just had too much time to think this summer. Still...I'm not sure I'm ready or willing to grow up yet...I mean, come on--what fun would there be in life without having the luxury to drool over, say, the boys of soulDecision and be able to blame it on being a teenager?

posted by Candace Pau 9/10/2000 06:35:27 PM

The True Confessions of an Over-age Teeny-bopper

Hi. My name is Candace Pau, and I am a pop-aholic.

I'm not quite sure where or when or exactly how I acquired the highly infectious and lethal disease known as teenybopperitis. I think it must have been in the last year, while I was away at college, that I was slowly brainwashed. Yes, over the course of nine or so months, I went from hard-rockin', guitar-lovin' alt chick to a top 40-cravin' soulDecision groupie. My friends tell me I am unrecognizable, and not only that, but also that I am sad, pathetic, and a huge dork.

I admit, the fall from grace has been hard to live with. My car still bears a bright yellow 94.7 NRK sticker, once proclaiming my loyalty and affection for the alternative station, but now only a constant reminder of my betrayal and guilt, as Christina Aguilera and *N Sync blast from my radio. I still buy CDs from alt.rock bands, perhaps in some lame attempt to salvage my former self, but it is merely a front; my new purchases are rarely listened to--abandoned for BB Mak. Recently, I thought there was hope yet, when I got Wheatus' "Teenage Dirtbag" stuck in my head. However, it was soon replaced by Britney Spears' "Lucky", which has exerted so terrible a hold on me, that I cannot stop myself from singing it repeatedly in the shower.

I knew the damage was severe when, this morning, I found myself awake at 7:30 on a holiday and driving 50 minutes to a soulDecision mall signing. Standing outside the mall doors, waiting for them to open, I realized, I am 18 years old. I am a college sophomore. I am probably the oldest person here. Shouldn't I have outgrown this, say, 5 or 6 years ago? Of course, as I rushed into the store and stood in line for another hour, I knew the answer was "no". And scarier still was that this craze--this obsession--seemed to have no intention of ceasing any time soon. Will I be 30 years old and still gushing over getting an autograph? The thought sends chills down my spine. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the mantra, "I am too old for this", kept quietly repeating, yet I ignored it, even as passersby eyed the long line of prepubescent girls, snaking around the perimeter of the store, and silently shook their heads in bewilderment. Clearly, I didn't belong here. I wasn't one of them, I thought. But to the rest of the world, I was. And maybe I am. Maybe I am simply in denial, not wanting to be classified with the rest of the groupies. That's understandable, isn't it?

For now, I feel somewhat hopeless--trapped in the current of pop mania, being swept away to lord knows where. The future is not bright. I can sense that with each passing moment, I move further and further away from my old niche in alt culture. Every day, I like Pink a little more and Papa Roach a little less. This summer, I spent my money on Z100's Last Chance Summer Dance, a radio show featuring soulDecision, Nu Flavor, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson, Brian McKnight, and Savage Garden among others, and bypassed NRK's Big Stink 5, featuring Stroke 9, Papa Roach, 8 Stops 7, Dandy Warhols, 3 Doors Down, MXPX, FenixTx, and Moby. I am not proud of this, but I have begun to accept that this is who I am. And perhaps that may be the final step in my conversion.

posted by Candace Pau 9/4/2000 10:19:31 PM

I don't know why I often log in to this page without having any clue as to what I should write.

At any rate, I'm currently looking into registering a non-profit: Citizens For Research, or some better name if I can come up with one...preferably a catchy acronym. Maybe once the organization is registered, I can raise some money to fund the domain name registration fee. Hopefully the name I want will still be available by then... =P

posted by Candace Pau 9/2/2000 12:58:31 AM