Maia Nebula!

The world is sick, but my smile is intact.

Monday, June 30, 2003

Yet Another Useless Quiz

I'm not sleepy, so I found one of these stupid surveys/quizzes/whatever in Mike Fireball's journal. I'll spend my night answering...

1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES? White, with some blue ornament
2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? Un Uomo, by Oriana Fallaci
3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? It's plain orange
4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? Othello... it's the only one I kind of know how to play to win
5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE? Muy Interesante
6. FAVORITE SMELL? Good food cooking!
7. LEAST FAVORITE SMELL? The inside of a damp bus in the rain... yuck!!!
8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? What time is it? What did I dream?
9. FAVORITE COLOR? green-blue-purple
10. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR? that orange hue that looks like vomit
11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE? 2
12. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME? Honda Sakura, I hope
13. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE? knowledge
14. FAVORITE SOUND? there are lots of sounds I love... rain from a cozy bedroom, for instance
15. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? choco choco chocolate!!! with lots of nuts
16. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? I don't think I do
17. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? actually with three: Pingüi, Benjamin Wolf, and Luther Chillingworth
18. STORMS COOL OR SCARY? they're DEADLY in Iowa... but I think they can be pretty sexy
19. YOUR FIRST CAR? 1986 Renault 4
20. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE? well, Minori and Kotaro! I'm not keen on celebrities anymore
21. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK? plum sake, even though I had it only once
22. WHAT IS YOUR SIGN & YOUR BIRTHDAY? Cancer, July 5, 1984
23. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI? sure, why not?
24. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB WHAT WOULD IT BE? famous writer, translator, language teacher
25. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOR HAIR, WHAT WOULD IT BE? the same I have now, shiny dark brown
26. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? yes, and still am, why?
27. IS THE GLASS HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY? it's got something to drink, that's all!!!
28. FAVORITE MOVIE? Realm of the Senses!!! hahahahaha maybe not? actually, Tron or Shrek
29. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? yes, why?
30. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? a mattress for guests
31. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? 4 & 7
32. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? olympic gymnastics
33. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR? losing my inspiration forever
34. SAY ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU. nobody did
35. PERSON MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? to respond what?
36. PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? respond what???
37. FAVORITE CD? Revolver, Abbey Road, The Beatles (White Album)... oh yeah and The Essential Billy Joel!
38. FAVORITE TV SHOWS? uh... uh... uh... Jackass?
39. KETCHUP OR MUSTARD? mustard!!! or ketchup, why not?
40. HAMBURGERS OR HOTDOGS? that food is crap!!! gimme something nutritious!!!
41. FAVORITE SOFT DRINK? Diet Pepsi or Canada Dry ginger ale
42. THE BEST PLACE YOU HAVE EVER BEEN? San Francisco, CA
43. WHAT SCREEN SAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW? the default WindowsXP screensaver
44. BURGER KING OR McDonalds? I said, THAT FOOD IS CRAP!!!!

Ok, there's nothing interesting. If you want reasons for my answers, my message board is always open. Bye, sweethearts!

Sunday, June 29, 2003

Another Useless Quiz

Since I have plenty of free time right now, I'll fill up some useless quiz I stole from somebody's blog. More and more chances to gather facts about Laura Acosta! Weeee! (yeah, I wish)

I TRY: to write something interesting in my Blog
I KNOW: I'll be able to recover all the things I left in Dubuque someday
I WANT: a new haircut
I WISH: Minori had gotten online today, but I understand he has been losing sleep by getting online at midnight to talk to me
I HATE: my lack of inspiration
I MISS: Minori!!! (and Kotaro, we three spelled the word FUN in huge letters)
I FEAR: I'll never be able to be together with Minori again
I HEAR: the washing machine, washing my family's clothes
I SEARCH: for sources of inspiration
I BELIEVE: we are all human and equal despite race, nationality, ethnicity, and all those stupid excuses to subjugate people
I WONDER: if I'll ever be able to write something decent again, and if I'll ever be able to publish, or if I'll become some 9 to 5 office worker who wastes her life by forgetting her dreams
I REGRET: having wasted so much brain and time on Carlos Márquez
I LOVE: Honda Minori (no it's not a new car, you fool!)
I CARE: for those who care
I ALWAYS: check my email (but I don't always answer soon)
I DANCE: merengue and salsa when my sister asks me to dance with her (she's in this very important stage of her life in which she must learn how to dance since she has so many 15-year birthday parties!)
I SING: whenever I feel like letting go of my emotions
I CRY: not very often
I FIGHT: with my sister for the right to use the computer
I WRITE: stupid Blog entries while the muses arrive from their tour around the Timbuktu
I WIN: lots of Neopoints when I play Pyramids
I LOSE: almost every single game I play (I never pay attention)
I CONFUSE: takai (high, expensive) with atakai (warm)
I LISTEN: to Billy Joel and Michelle Branch
I NEED: to keep losing all that fat I gained in Dubuque
I BREATHE: a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other chemical compounds
I SHOULD: be writing in Spanish
I DREAM: very weird things, like last night... I dreamed that my mom, sister, and I were going to visit one of my sister's classmates (who happens not to be studying at her school anymore in the real life). The girl's mom was very mean, and for some reason I got mad and threw away my bags (I had like three bags, how odd) and my books. If I'm not mistaken, I was wearing my school's uniform (FYI, I graduated a year ago). When I went out of the girl's house, my books had been spread all around some park in the dark, and one of my bags had been stolen (like of course! this is a city!). I looked for it all around, and there were some flashlights which I turned on, and they created a very interesting effect, which lit up the whole park. Very weird. Anyway, my bag was lost and I had all my Hard Rock Cafe pins there (can you imagine!? my Chicago, Miami, and San Francisco efforts ALL GONE!!!). Then, some time later, I found a bag that looked almost like the one I had lost hanging from a nail on a wall in the street, and I just took it, without pondering if it belonged to somebody else. That's how it ends. I woke up, very happy to know that my bag is still here and my Hard Rock Cafe pins are somewhere else! Okashi, ne?
I FEEL: full of energy! Michelle Branch always cheers me up
I AM NOT: a typical Colombian girl

Saturday, June 28, 2003

Free shows for people with lots of time

One of the funniest scenes I've seen in my recent life:

They're building a new mall right in front of my neighborhood, across Calle 80. Anybody can get a nice view of the construction from the bridge that takes to the bus station. I was crossing it one sunny afternoon when I saw about 15 people at the other end, staring at the construction site. They were sitting on the bridge's railing or just leaning their elbows on it, unmoving, just gazing. I thought something had happened. Then I saw them: huge and beautiful, purple, green, orange Hitachi machines with white signs in kanji, dancing on the damp soil. I understood, then, that it was the construction itself what brought their free amusement. I thought "this is my country!" And yes, I live in the country with free shows for people with lots of time, where a simple construction site is the main attraction for a family during a lazy afternoon, where astonishment still comprises phases of life that many have chosen to ignore forevermore.

And I went on, my heart filled with a warm feeling, and a smile on my face.

The Friday Five

Let's do a Friday Five! A Friday Five is supposed to be some small questionnaire bloggers fill out every Friday. It comes from this website. I hope this thing turns out pretty interesting... After all, I have to find inspiration somewhere, and simple questions can't be that bad a start.

1. How are you planning to spend the summer [winter]?
Doing all the paperwork for the university, spending a lot of time with my family, getting used to my city again.

2. What was your first summer job?
English-Spanish/Spanish-English translation for people in my neighborhood.

3. If you could go anywhere this summer [winter], where would you go?
I'd go to Japan, of course!!! or back to San Francisco.

4. What was your worst vacation ever?
I haven't had one.

5. What was your best vacation ever?
I think that would be my year-long vacation in Dubuque, IA! (featuring SAN FRANCISCO, CA)

That was it? Man, how uninteresting!!! Don't I have anything to say? This blog sucks. My mind sucks!

Where are the muses? Where, huh? Where???

Can anybody help me!? Any ideas welcome!

Thursday, June 26, 2003

You're My Home

My sister received her yearbook yesterday. It was kinda hard not to see myself there. It's like there's a big community I had belonged to for a long, long time, and suddenly, I'm gone! I don't belong there anymore. Due to the fact that I'm not in college yet, I feel like I don't belong anywhere outside my family. It doesn't matter, anyway. This adaptation process is still slow. The city is cold, but my house is wonderful. It's like the only place I want to be is home.
Home.
It's tough when the definition of "home" breaks up in two: one of the pieces remains in a place I've known all my life, the other is loose, bound to me by strange forces. What to do? Where to go?


we are words
we are what we write
nothing else

Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Takai!

I've been looking for Japanese restaurants in Bogota, but it seems like I'll never be able to try any more Japanese food while I live in this country. Everything costs an eye of the face! Japanese food is absolutely fancy here. It used to be something quite normal for me last year! Ugh. Well, it was expensive in the US too... ne? Hmmm, I can feel the taste of unagi in my mouth... irashaimase!

I guess I still don't have anything interesting to say because I haven't done a lot of exciting stuff around Bogota. I mean, I just came here. This used to be my all-time home, and then I left for DBQ, and now I'm back. It's awkward. My friends are now memories and frequent emails (Kotaro! Minori!!!) . I'm still trying to adapt to the place where I had spent my entire childhood. Are there many (or any) friends right here? I wonder how things will be when everybody's busy. Are we still the same? How far apart are we drifting?

I feel like I want to gather all my special people with a lasso, like a cowboy, and keep them forever. However, I can't keep my friends: it is them who decide if they stay.

I hope they stay...

Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Ginshari-San

Cutest thingie in the whole wide world!



Please say Konnichiwa to one of my loves: GINSHARI-SAN!!! The cutie sushi rice is here to make my sleepless night. I love the San-X characters, even though the only place in which I've found them has been in Kinokuniya (a store in Japan Center, San Francisco). Too bad.

I feel like I haven't said anything smart so far. Maybe I should try sleeping...

Japanglish— So Strange Time!

Now that my dear Mino-chan is out enjoying the sun in Okinawa, I found this sign posted by someone to the uber-hilarious Engrish.com website:

Okinawa Vacation
It's so strange time!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I wonder if Minori is having "so strange time" in the island! hahahaha it's so funny, hontoni!
Everyone who comes to this blog and speaks English should check out this inclusion of weird English in everyday Japanese marketing.

Minori called!!!!!!!!! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!!!!!!!!!!
It's unbelievable... talking to him from such a distance! He's having fun in Okinawa, fortunately. I miss him like hell, oh yeah. Miss him miss him miss him! It was an awkward moment, really. I'm so excited I can hardly write.

Monday, June 23, 2003

Hello. My name is Laura Acosta. I used to have a very nice web journal until my FrontPage collapsed. That's how this Blog was born.
I'm writing in English because that's the universal language and that way my friends around the world will see how I'm doing. Anyway, if this doesn't work, I'll feel very frustrated.
That's it. Bye.