someone buy me clancy the bear and i'll love you forever!

i'm so frustrated i can't seem to get my comments link to work.

HENCE WHY INTRO TO COMPUTERS AND I DID NOT GET ALONG.

i'm going to absolutely die from laughter.

my mom and i were cleaning our hall closet and underneath a pile of old junk i found pages to my diary from the third grade AND this ridiculous entry. it's utterly embarrassing and extremely funny but for the sake of memories, in all its glory, here it is (please feel free to laugh and call me names).

3/5/93

dear diary,

lucky me! this year i'm in the same class as travis! you know what that means. i think he likes me. once he was staring at me. or was he looking at something else? i guess i'll never know. but i really like him. he's cute and has a good attitude. but, he's funny around us. i think he's cool. he plays with other boys but i think he does that to keep me thinking he doesn't like me. i guess i won't find out till high school! if i ever meet him there.

needless to say, i never did find out. nor did he like me. i'm pathetic. and still laughing.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMY!

you are no doubt, absolutely and finally legal. (yay! i can bring two of my friends! haha remember that?)

i got a bit bored at work

1. What time do you get up? If I have work 8:30, no work, probably around 10.
2. If you could eat lunch with one person, who would it be? Wow I have to pick just one? Angelina Jolie.
3. Gold or silver? Neither? I prefer platinum.
4. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
5. What is your favorite TV show? Sex and the City baby.
6. What do you have for breakfast? Tall nonfat Caramel Macchiato, Tall nonfat Vanilla Latte, etc. etc.
7. Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? amy jin. hahahahahah jk!
8. What/who inspires you? To make my parents proud, not being a disappointment and of course, money. And manolo blahnik, jimmy choo, dolce & gabbana, marc Jacobs, badgley mischka, narcisco Rodriguez, god do you want to hear the entire list? Recently runway shows – the artistry, the beauty, the theatrics behind them – makes me want really badly to be sitting front row at a Christian dior show.
9. What is your middle name? Lynn
10. Beach, City or Country? A little bit of each! Beach in the summer, city when I work, countries on vacation. The perfect blend would be a job in a fast-paced city (new york), a country home upstate, and a beach house in Hawaii. God that’d be wonderful.
11. Favorite ice cream? Coffee. Espresso. Anything related to that.
12. Butter, plain or salted popcorn? I don’t much like popcorn. But a bit of butter and salt I guess.
13. Favorite color(s)? pale green, pink, and black
14. What kind of car do you drive? Toyota 4runner.
15. Favorite sandwich? Crab salad. Or a really good panini.
16. What characteristic do you despise? Not having balls. And indecisiveness. Probably because I’m indecisive.
17. Favorite flower? Orchids and lilies.
18. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Somewhere exotic, somewhere not too known, somewhere romantic. An island off the coast of Thailand? Something like that.
19. What color is your bathroom? Uh white.
20. Where would you retire to? A nice island off the coast of France? Haha I don’t know, somewhere incredibly beautiful.
21. Favorite day of the week? Fridays, or Saturdays.
22. What did you do for your last birthday? Went home. But a week later my wonderful girls threw Chris and I a fabulous dinner at Andalu’s in SF, then bar hopping from Milk on the Haight to Fluid on Mission.
23. Favorite sport to watch? Tennis. And football sometimes.
24. What fabric detergent do you use? Fabric detergent? Uh I think I use Tide.
25. Coke or Pepsi? Diet Coke with a fresh lemon.
26. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Morning person, unlike everyone else.
27. What is your shoe size? Depending on the brand, 7-7.5.
38. Do you have any pets? No =( my rabbit Krackers died five years ago and my fish, Christian Dior, passed away half a year ago.

my parents are the best. i just have to say that. i used to think that i couldn't spend an entire day with them but i did today! what's even more awesome is that my poor dad woke up at 6 am to drive to LA only to have forgotten the keys to his office, wait for 2 hours for a co-worker to come, just to pick up my powerbook. my daddy loves me! haha.

and my mom, let's not forget her. because she's so damn concerned about the way my face looks, she ran to shiseido to buy me new products. hey good for me. oh, and due to "comfort", she also bought me a new bed.

come over! you can spend the night with me on my nice, plush queen size bed. it'll be grand.

but i fear
i have nothing to give
i have so much to lose
here in this lonely place
tangled up in our embrace
there's nothing i'd like
better than to fall
but i fear i have nothing to give

instead of sleeping (great i'm going to fall asleep at my desk tomorrow), i decided to rummage/clean through some old shoeboxes. but being the pack rat that i am, i became entirely mesmerized by everything i had collected in high school -- letters, i can't even begin to tell you how many there are (i think half of them are from jenn shen - wow we really go way back), pictures, notes here and there, dance invitations, etc.

it's amazing to just go back and read what used to be cool, how we talked, wrote, gossiped about: "yeah i don't know if he'll be a good date, but sadies is always fun!" we're so silly.

i was so excited when i found this old letter from chris i wanted to call him and laugh. but i think he's sleeping, stupid finals. i'll tell you tomorrow.

and then i came upon this, scribbled on the back of notebook paper, probably stolen from a movie? a poem? someone? i don't know, but i still kinda like it.

"i'm going to smile because i want to make you happy...laugh so you can't see me cry...i'm going to let you go in style and even if it kills me i'm going to smile...because that's how i want you to remember me."

updated from last summer's blog. look for italics. that's the new stuff.

my full name is erika lynn shao. if i were born a boy, i would have been an eric. i asked my dad what it felt like to have witnessed my birth. he said it was the worst day of his life. i believe him.

i'm an only child. when i was younger, i talked to my stuffed animals, created imaginary friends, not because i didn't have any friends, but because it was lonely when they all had to go home.

i'm from LA, specifically, diamond bar, suburbia los angeles. it's a bit fobbed up, but i like it that way, or else it wouldn't be home. i'm an LA girl, i'll always be an LA girl.

i'm beginning to really miss san francisco. i want to bathe in the summer breeze, probably still cold enough for a warm spring sweater. cioppino along the wharf, fresh oysters from swann's, delightful tuna tartare from isa.

but i'm a cal girl for the next year or so. i go to uc berkeley. i plan to graduate with two bachelor of arts degrees, one in mass communications, the other in sociology.

i walked last month. so surreal. yet incredibly real. wow i finished college. almost.

i'm indecisive. i changed my major about four times.

i think i'm going to change my career path 6 billion times. law school or no? (refer to previous post couple days ago)

i've always wanted a dog, but my mom's scared of them so when i was eight, my parents bought me a rabbit. her name was krackers. she lived a remarkable eight years. i cried when we had to have her put to sleep. she started seizuring and she was blind in one eye. thinking of the pain she must have been in is making me tear up, even right now.

i believe in the good in people. i trust people from the very beginning.

i carry my heart on my sleeve. i fall easily.

i should add, i fall easily, but very rarely. sometimes i wish it were the other way around. but then i wouldn't realize those things that are good? i don't know. i miss falling though. being vulnerable. god it's scary, but so wonderful at the same time.

i wish i were an artist. i love paintings. i love museums. i love david hockney. i love photography.

i wish i were a chef. i love food, ingredients, the perfect basil leaf. the richness of cabernet sauvignon. the beauty of a medium-rare steak.

i can sit in a bookstore for hours, going from section to section, reading about alice walkers' recipes to what really happened during the vietnam war.

i intern at teen magazine. i see how ruthless and how superficial the entertainment industry is. and i still want to be a part of it.

i intern at E! networks. i read WWD everyday. i watch runways. derek lam, esteban cortozar, zac posen, christian lacroix, just to name a few. i love these people. artists in the world of fashion. excellent.

i want to attend the annenberg school of communications at usc. i want masters in communication management and print journalism. i want to write for vogue, vanity fair, rolling stone. i want to interview celebrities. i want to write.

everything above, re-emphasize it. oh, and perhaps law school. to be or not to be. sigh.

i remember faces and places. i have a good memory.

i love shopping. what girl doesn't?

i have a hat fetish. fedoras, baseball hats, paper boy hats. hats, hats, hats.

i have a shoe fetish. a jean fetish. a watch fetish. good facial products fetish. a bloomingdales fetish. it doesn't end.

i need to be reminded every once in awhile that people are human. i need to learn that everything isn't always centered around my feelings. i need to grow up.

i hate the taste of alcohol. i turn red with the smallest sip of it. but i like wine. dessert and plum wine to be exact.

i want to live in new york for awhile. i want to study in london. i want to spend 6 months in paris. i want to take a train around europe. i want to teach underpriviledged children. i want to show them what a childhood is all about.

i want a white mustang. i want to be able to drive a stick shift perfectly, not stall every five minutes and ruin the gears.

i'm going to buy a gorgeous house in the malibu cliffs one day. and i'm going to decorate it all by myself.

i want to fall in love and have my heart broken. and fall in love again.

i'm sensitive but learning how to not be. i'm scared of the world sometimes. i'm terrified of failure. i'm afraid of change.

i live in a world of color. i wish things could sometimes be black and white. i wish i knew my future. i wish i could have more direction, ambition, determination.

i'm idealistic. i'm a hopeless romantic. i love colin farrell. and angelina jolie.

i'm illogical. oh god how will i even remotely get a decent score on the LSAT's? but sometimes practicality is so incredibly boring. spur of the moment. carpe diem, baby.

i'm erika. nice to meet you. what's your name?

i've wasted enough time. i still haven't finished lunch. and i have a bunch of tapes to still go through. i'm erikaandstressedashell but loving every minute of it.

there are so many HOT guys at work.

the catch is, 80% of them are gay. the other 20%, in the closet. i always seem to lose.

helllooooo erika's blog!! this is annie signing in...

let's see, what should i leave on her blog today?

well, erika and i go waaaaayyyyy back... we've been friends since... high school... and i've watched her grow up - albiet she's still sort of immature still. oh yeah... i knew her when she was *gasp* SKINNY. yeah... that was a while ago. (oh, btw, did i say that i am a very funny person?) i am laughing as i am typing this. anyways... i dont have much to say right now, but i know her passwords so when i do think of something, i'll be sure to post. oh, and if you, my great reader, have anything to say, don't hesitate to let me know and i'll post for you =)

annie.

ps. hi angela and christine! =)

I’m attempting to study for my LSAT’s. That obviously is NOT going well seeing how I’ve turned on Helen’s laptop only to type this blog entry. This is what happens after doing seven logical reasoning questions and becoming sick immediately after having found out I missed half of them. (Seriously, I had to run to the bathroom) I blame the coldness of this Border’s Café. I think the more “logical” explanation would be that I’m just plain not cut out for this. That just sucks.

I found myself wandering through the bargain books section – first through food, then through art, then downstairs through the best-sellers, and of course, my favorite section, the magazines. And I thought to myself, what am I doing? I have less than a few days to really decide, is this what I want to do and here I am, wandering aimlessly through the magazine section as if I had no care in the world. Common sense, and my practical side tell me, no, do not torture yourself in doing something you are so uncertain about. But my heart (damn that organ) is willing me to move forward. Into what? A life of hell and the reality that the only law school that will accept me is Whittier College? Serves me right for taking shit about it all this time. Fuck.

I have all these other passions. Food, architecture (obviously viewing it, not designing it), art, fashion, clothes, shoes, magazines, writing, prose and yet, I want to go to law school. I’ve gone this far, why don’t I just finish what I started? I took on two absolutely ridiculous majors because I was way too chicken to suck it all up and continue what I came to Berkeley for: The Haas School of Business. Every time business comes up my Dad snickers, “Dream down the drain”. Perhaps I still think about it so much because I feel like I’m disappointing my dad – I don’t even remember the last time I saw him proud of me. I think it was when I pitched a no-hitter for six innings or something. Then again, that is only accompanied by the look of utter disappointment on his face when I gave up the winning run a game later. I could never please him. This goes into my issue with men too. Maybe I shut them all out because I’m scared to disappoint them. I was watching a Sex and the City episode in which Carrie says, “Maybe the relationship you have with your father models all the relationships you’ll have with men”. Something like that. I’m fucked. For law school and my love life.

I go on too many tangents. I love art. I remember going to museums as a kid, fascinated by all the huge paintings. I remember the Met when I was visiting Cornell back in high school and how captivating it was just seeing all these amazing pieces in every wing of the museum. I remember the intrigue I felt writing my final paper in my History of Art class freshman year, analyzing William Blake. What if I majored in Art History? Had my own gallery one day? Bought and sold art? That would be the life.

I love food, god look at me. What if I went to culinary arts school? Became a chef? Or not even, a food critic. Travel the world documenting my tastes. Hopefully I wouldn’t do it Anthony Bourdain style in A Cook’s Tour because I will probably throw up for the first time since I was five watching a duck having a pipe shoved down this throat to make the perfect, plump, rich, delicious fois gras. No fucking thank you. But critiquing all the restaurants in lower Manhattan, Beverly Hills, Chicago, incredibly amazing.

And if I stuck it out, applied to Haas and get accepted, where would I be? Doing accounting right now for Accenture? Have scored a consulting internship at Bain? Or better yet, slave away into the depths of the night with Annie at her Century City Investment Banking firm? I could guarantee you one thing. My parents would be fucking proud. They’d have a banner across the front of our two-story, suburbia house with the words “MY DAUGHTER IS A SUCCESS” written in hot pink.

But alas, here I am, sitting in the freezing Borders café playing what if’s. My life is too much about those damnit. So I look at my choices.

1) Law School (shudder)
2) Masters in Journalism (fashion editor at Vogue, fashion editor at Vogue…)
3) Ph.D (I’m not a social worker! I’m going to be a SUPER social worker!)
4) Begging for money on Telegraph Ave.

Nooooo, I’ve lost it! I can never be a journalist. My writing moments come and go. But hell, I had fun for the past twenty minutes. Actually, I was distracted. Helen came back after having said she had trouble opening the bathroom door. That’s a future doctor for you.

I just want to be happy. And love what I do. Absolutely love my job. Can I just have that? And be able to support the way I want to live. When it comes down to it, I don’t need Porsche’s, Malibu beach houses, or daily dinners at the Four Seasons. I just need a little bit of encouragement, ambition, mixed in with a great deal of love, friendships, and unconditional support. That’ll make any of my four options incredibly enticing. Even begging for money on Telegraph.

stolen from annie's blog since i feel like being in high school

FIRSTS
1. first best friend: connie chen
2. first car: the same one i'm driving, my trusty green toyota 4runner
3. first real kiss: annie put her age, am i supposed to describe? too bad. i was 11.
4. first break-up: oh romance is so fragile. haha i was 12.
5. first screen name: great. let me think. i think it was babycrunch, shut up.
6. first self-purchased item: oh my god like i'd remember.
7. first funeral: my grandfather's when i was 12? 13?
8. first pets: probably a fish. couple fishes.
9. first piercings/tattoos: my ears in 5th grade. i kinda want a tattoo again.
10. first credit card: my mom's when i was 16.
11. first enemy: hmm. probably the guy that pissed me off so much i threw a softball at his head in 6th grade. (oh it was one of those rubbery softballs and he was a baby about it)
12. first big trip: lake arrowhead, 6th grade trip.
13. first music you remember: some chinese singer my mom and babysitter told me i used to sing everyday (what do you know!)

LASTS
1. last cigarette: a long time ago.
2. last car ride: driving home from LA tonight.
3. last kiss: hahaha three hours ago. ask me about it later. *wink* haha
4. last good cry: a week ago? i was caught by chris.
5. last library book checked out: some chinese cinema books for my final paper.
6. last movie seen in theatres: raising helen
7. last beverage drank: water
8. last food consumed: pizza and chicken kickers
9. last crush: this is just sad.
10. last phone call: about 1:30 in the morning. tata chang.
11. last time showered: two hours ago
12. last shoes worn: white BCBG
13. last item bought: uhh half the pizza?
14. last annoyance: trying to understand donatella versace's accent at work today
15. last time wanting to die: hmm. a very long time ago
16. last time scolded: yesterday for being rude to my mom

CURRENT
1. clothes: my raggedy south pointe volleyball t-shirt from 7th grade, red A&F gym shorts
2. music: none, my laptop fan
3. make-up: at 3 am? no.
4. annoyance: my laptop fan
5. smell: whatever john frieda hair serum smells like -- coconutty. nice.
6. favorite artist: postal service
7. desktop picture: a sunset
8. book you're reading: a cook's tour, anthony bourdain
9. cd in player: some mix cd
10. dvd in player: sex and the city season 4
11. color of toenails: lavendar

RANDOM
1. in the morning i am: before or after coffee? before i'll give you hell. after i'm great.
2. all i need is: money. hahaha no no, just kidding.
3. love is: patience, forgiveness, trust, letting go at the right moment, holding on when it's worth fighting for.
4. i dream about: money. haha there i go again. i guess there's some truth to it.

thanks for reading. that must mean you're as bored as i am.