so tomorrow--or technically today--i start my first of four/five mini-jobs as a college graduate.  i have a meeting at 3pm tomorrow in the head basketball coach's office--hah!  i've never been in the athletics department.  ahahah.  so, i'm gonna be tutoring 3 basketball players in intensive writing and my first job is to help them write a research paper.  then, i get to use a book and have them do homework out of workbooks!  it's like, whoa, i'm doing a job that relates to my major.  it's actually intimidating, though.  i was looking at the team roster and these guys are like 6'3, 6'4, one guy is 6'8 and the shortest is 5'11.  and i'm like 5 feet tall.  and then, there's giving usf campus tours (which i would consider my most expendable job out of all of them, but i still wouldn't mind doing it a few times a week; gotta keep my "people skills" up, right?).  i'm also going to be a research assistant to two professors in the english department and when kim, the english/honors program assistant, goes on vacation (she's going to look at chapels in vegas for her wedding in 2006!  eep!  a vegas wedding!  wahoo!) i'll be in charge of the office.  that's kinda a lot to jugggle, but i guess it's comparable to taking 4/5 different classes.  can you tell i'm having school withdrawal???  today louie's dad said the coolest thing to me:  he asked me why i was working right away and then i explained that it wasn't a full-time job, and he was like good, you need to take a break--you've been working hard for 4 years.  it's nice to hear that.  but then my mom told me that my dad was like i need a fulltime job and i was like, i can't get a fulltime job right now, i'll start looking in august.  and she was like why?  and i was like because i'm going on vacationw with louie's family at the end of june and i can't start a job and ask for 3 different weeks off right when i begin (because my parents want me to stay at their house for a week at the beginning of june while they gallavant off to texas and then forced me to agree to go on vacation with them at the end of june, too).  it kinda sucks because all i've been getting is pressure lately.  you'd think that you'd have time to breath and enjoy graduating, but now, apparently you're supposed to get your life started and fit it to the lives of other people who want you start your life, but only in a way that fits with theirs (ahemparentsahem).  first it's about going on vacation when i don't want to because i need to get settled into a job so i can afford to keep living in san francisco.  then it's getting pressured to find a real job when i finally agree to go on vacation so people will stop whining and asking me when i will know whether or not i can go on vacation and therefore can't really get a fulltime job because why would anyone hire me over someone else who can work right away?  i don't know.  i also don't spend as much time at my parents house anymore and that's partly because when i do go there, i usually end up watching tv or going on the computer by myself because everyone else is doing their own thing or else there's so much drama going on that i remember why i don't want to move back to vallejo.  the longer i'm at my parents house--like my first 3 summers of college--the more it reverted back to me being treated like i was in high school, with the "be home by 10" speeches.  the other part is because there isn't really room for me.  i was ousted from my bedroom the first month of my freshman year so when i do sleep there i'm either on the couch or on the floor or squeezing next to two of my sisters on a twin-size bed.  i feel bad whenever my family talks about how i spend so much time at louie's house, but i just get more room there--physically and emotionally and psychology.  even then though, sometimes i'd rather just stay in san francisco, even if i am alone here.  i really enjoy the independence.  i love my family and i enjoy visiting them, but i'm at the point in my life in which i don't want people to tell me what to do; i lived with all the catholic, asian family strictness for most of my life.  you have suggestions? fine, suggest away, but being told what i should and should not do and being guilt tripped into making decisions i don't want to make urks the hell out of me.  i'm 22 years old, i'm a college graduate, but sometimes i still get treated like i'm in junior high, and i hate it especially because it seems, in some cases, that my parents are giving my younger siblings more freedom than they're giving me--not just when i was there age, but now.  i don't mind theirs or anyone else's help, i know i need it because i've never had a fulltime job or had to worry about insurance or any of that stuff that most dependent students don't have to worry about just yet.  but let me do things because I choose to do them and not because you keep nagging me and poking me and jabbing me and holding me by the scruff of the neck in the direction you want me to go.  end rant here.             

At 14

Here's something from page two:

As the song finished and I pushed the stop button, you removed the headphones from my ears, and stared at me and I stared at you but not at your eyes.  You dropped onto one knee and held my fingers.  You were wearing Levis and a dark green, ribbed sweater, charcoal boots.  I noticed that one of your shoelaces was untied so I followed the black curve on the shadowed gray with my eyes.  You finally asked Will you be my girl?  And I just nodded because I was too busy thinking about how romantic it was to have been asked to be someone’s girl by a boy on one knee.  It was two-forty-two a.m. and there was a silver dollar in my pocket—the dollar you wanted to lose to me because it was made in 1979, the year you were born.  You were big on things like that, symbols and signs, so I was, too.

and something from page 4:

This was how I met you:  Anne had given me your pager number; she’s still my best friend, but she’s not your friend anymore even though you knew her first.  One night I felt brave and sent you some messages:  Hi-this-is-Anne’s-friend and To-be-fair-here-is-my-pager-number.  You messaged me back that night.  I was sitting on my bed and the pager was sitting on top of my television when it started spinning from the vibrations and I felt the rush in my chest and I picked it up and pushed the button to read what you—I knew it was you—had sent me.

Here are a few pics from my graduation, USF May 21, 9am

so it looks like i might be juggling hella jobs this summer (since they're all just a couple hours a week or so; hopefully it'll add up nicely):
-tourguiding
-being Dr. Fung's research assistant
-being Dr. Seeley's research assistant
-filling in for kimberly when she goes on vocation for 2 weeks
-and possibly (cross your fingers for me) tutoring the basketball team in intensive writing

it's too late for me to get placed in SF for notre dame mission volunteers.  i might try to do Partners in School Innovation, but first I want to see what the position of the tutor involves (e.g., part-time versus full-time and whether it is long-term or not).

i'm still considering getting a certificate in child development from CCSF, but I got another month or so to decide.

things i will miss...

late nights of writing--with my computer desk always by a window, i was able to watch the light seep through into day, which was both an amazing and frighteningly stressful wonder

moments when great questions or ideas or images spark and it's like something breaks free and you learn that you know and can do more than you or anyone else thought you did or could

being able to rant to professors and spent time just talking in their offices about siblings and parents and life and stuff you talk about with friends

that feeling of relief and that comes with the discovery that you have classes with the same people

the comfort of know that there's still another semester, another year

watching the fruition of years of work and stress and tears and everything good thing towards a goal of which the getting becomes more important than the gotten

consumatum est.

i thought your parents were supposed to be proud and happy and make you feel good about yourself when you graduate, not get pushy and pissy and make you cry two days in row before your graduation ceremony.

"The Terrible Fly" -- here are 2 paragraphs from the bottom of page 2 

He picked up a dry fly.  This looks like a dragonfly.  It’s really pretty.  It’s not fat and hairy like the other ones—the wet flies, he meant.  He brushed the makeshift wings against his cheeks.  Can I keep this one?  I don’t want a fish to eat it.  His mother didn’t answer, so he carefully tucked the dragonfly into the front pocket of his overalls, next to the sand dollar he always carried with him because his sister gave it to him. 

There were some stoneflies in the tackle box, too.  He picked up a dry fly.  You can’t use that.  It’s too late in the summer.  But he didn’t want to use that disgusting brown thing anyway.  It looked like a caterpillar with a big porcupine quill collar, like the ones the queens of England wore.  It also had porcupine quill wings and even more porcupine quills coming out of its butt where the hook was.  Its face looked like a small ugly bird face.