this is why ill never be truly succesful in law school ... beacuse i stay up all night watching disco videos like THIS ONE instead of studying. way to spend a friday night! p.s. this is one of my favorite love songs. if jeff and i ever got married id probably arbitraly decide that this song by the Hues Corporation should be our wedding song, ya know the song youre supposed to dance the first dance to, and jeff would probably hate me forever for making him slow dance to this song.;.

this weekend i went down to fingerprints in long beach and bought a Friends of Distinciton record, the soul group most known for this song (which was unfortunately hijacked and used in a commercial by those bastards at old navy)



watching this video makes me more determined than ever to wear nothing but bell bottoms and suede vests.

other records burchased this weekend:

1. dinah washington
2. benny goodman ( ever since i read Giants of Jazz by Studs Turkel, i've been trying to get more familiar with all the jazz legends)

3. richard pryor, "That N*****'s Crazy"
4. patti smith, easter

I Don't Blame Her!

This article makes me want to send RBG a telegram that says "yo girl, you and i should eat ice cream sometime and have girltalk." Ruth probably hates everyone's guts on the supreme court. scalia and the other men probably sit around eating pork rinds and talking about how much the kind of women they love best is barefoot and pregnant!

*********************************************

Ginsburg Feels Isolated on Court
Associated Press
Sunday, January 28, 2007; Page A02


BOSTON -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Friday that she dislikes being "all alone on the court" nearly a year after the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor.

Ginsburg, who spoke to an assembly at Suffolk University Law School, said she sees more women in law school, arguing before the court and sitting as federal judges.


"My consolation is that if you look at the federal courts altogether, you get a much different picture than you do if you look only at the U.S. Supreme Court," she said.

Of herself and O'Connor, the court's first female justice, Ginsburg said: "We have very different backgrounds. We divide on a lot of important questions, but we have had the experience of growing up women and we have certain sensitivities that our male colleagues lack."

Ginsburg, 73, did not elaborate or take questions afterward.

papa's got a brand new bag (in heaven!)

as a consequence of me spending the weekend at my mom's without any internet access which is pretty much equivalent to being holed up in siberia, i didn't find out about sir. james brown's passing till very very late last night. although i am very sad to see the godfather go, i can't help remark about how amazing it is that the soulfather lived to be a whopping 73 years old! most old soul/jazz/blues/reggae singers like charlie parker, marvin gaye, otis redding and tami terrell only live very short lives, dying tragic deaths from years of drug use/alcoholism/poverty/poor health/or just some random freak accident, or usually a combination of those elements inluding dying of a broken heart.

but the man with the golden feet lived a very rich and full life that was long as hell. it's sad that he won't be around anymore since as long as i can remember being alive, james brown has been a permanent fixture in pop culture, and his many hits, wigs, costumes, suits, innovations in music, screams, sexual proclamations, mindblowing dance moves that inspired a young michael jackson, diva tantrums, pcp drug busts, domestic violence assault charges, failed entrepreneurial ventures, abuse of his back up musicians, inverviews conducted while he was high as a kite, riffs that were ripped off and sampled by hip hop artists, and powerful expressions of black power in his songs deserve much celebration and respect for their importance ot american history.

James Brown will be sorely missed.

after spending the morning watching james brown clips on youtube, here are some of my favorites:

james brown singing "i feel good" which is a song i don't really like to listen to because i've heard it a zillion times, but this video is an amazing display of james' dance moves.


classic james brown doing "out of sight" but check out that fucking dancing!



this one is one of my absolute favorites! james brown doing sex machine and soul power. but notice that james is without his trademark wig, and he's wearing his hair au natural in a kinky afro, which was a real political statement at the time. this must have been filmed sometime in the late 60's judging by the go go dancer or could have been 1970 or so judging how the music was changing and becoming much more funky. i love that bass player and james' sude vest and pants!


finally i just had to throw living in america in here cause it has special significance to me now that i've passed my citizenship test!

best costume ever!

leave it to designer marc jacobs to come up with the funniest neatest and most surprising costume ever: a dirty vile trash eating pidgeon!

see dressing up in costumes is about fun and creativity, not about having an opportunity to dress up like a Ho, which is what most girls at ucla law dress up as for halloween, but they just call themselves, angels, bunny rabbits, school girls, fairys, but really they are just dressing up as sluts.

oh well i am still marveling at this pidgeon costume that marc jacobs wore to some sort of dress up party.

YECH!

last week, i had an out of character feeling of bruin pride when ucla finally beat usc in that damn football game, but any sort of bruin pride i had has been completely annihilated after reading about and seeing pictures of this FUCKING DISGUSTING abomonation at our school,the so-called Undie Run celebrating the end of finals, i.e. white slutty bitches and fuckign asenine jocks running around in their underwear looking like they're about to gang rape every intoxicated sorority girl that crosses their path AND gaybash people AND commit multiple hate crimes while smoking out of beer bongs all at once.

THIS is why there should be fucking diversity at UCLA. if you notice there's pretty much NO MINORITIES in these pics, because the latinos and african americans and even asians would feel utter shame in doing shit like this and know that their mommas would BITCHSLAP them for exposing their nastified cooches and revolting boners in public. HOwever, i do think this sort of thing would probably be really popular at the law school and a preponderance of asian girls would probably be really into prancing along with all the white people in their abercrombie and fitch underwear too.

seriously THIS would be my worst nightmare, the kind that would be the setting of my torture scene at the end of orwell's 1984. but instead of a rat devouring my face, i would be right smack in the middle of the crowd next to these hornified pimply undergrads with trust funds.

The fucking LA times needs to find better things to write about. they should write about more interesting things like me and my lovehandles.







this fucking dumb asian bitch should be disgusted with herself.

fan-fucking-tastic

in the middle of finals week of all weeks, i have my citizenship interview tomorrow morning in downtown

so while im pathetically and unsuccessfully trying to learn evidence, i've also had to look over sample citizenship test questions such as these lovely ones. It's going to be hard to restrain myself from saying something really sassy and offensive in my sleep deprived state! i put the answers i would like to say in parentheses.

73. Who helped the Pilgrims in America?
The American-Indians (Native Americans)
(More like who were raped and pillaged by the Pilgrims)

77. Who has the power to declare the war?
The Congress

(supposedly congress does, but this president doesn't think so!)

16. Who elects the President of the United States?
The electoral college

(NATIVIST WHITE RELIGIOUS PEOPLE DO)

old hag

i'm a withered old hag and too cranky and old to be taking finals! i just want to curl up in bed and warm my feet by the heater because it's cold!

christmas time is here (almost)

Just watched one of my favorite things ever on tv while i ate my cup o noodles for dinner: Charlie Brown Christmas!!!!

maybe I'm just PMSing but charlie brown xmas made me super sad what with everyone being mean to Chuck, that wistful piano tune, that poor sad little christmas tree, and how nobody sent charlie brown a christmas card. i almost lost it when all the kids ganged up on charlie brown for bringing back the pitiful little xmas tree! they have no heart!

oh well. i really do hate studying for finals. i hate the fact that i havent been studying enough and just really dont care about learning things like evidence.

i do have to hand it to my Critical race theory prof for doing such a great job indoctrinating me to the shrewd ways of CRT thinking, that i couldnt help but notice how all the peanuts gang were white kids, with the exception of that little black kid, what was his name.. franklin? but i refused to let that kepe me from enjoyng charlie brown xmas!

loco for yoko (part II)

here are my favorite pictures of yoko in what i think are some of her most impressive and unique fashion statements. forget john, yoko had all the personality.

love that hat and kooky furry jacket and beaded princess shoes:


i thought this was Kim Jong Il at first. but that yellow jumpsuit is great. i need one:


this is cute. i want to get married in an outfit very similar to the one yoko wore on her wedding day.


I LOVE LOVE LOVE this blue shorts jumpsuit. so hot with those heels!


and last but not least, this one is my fave. cracked out mystcal psychic yoko:

yoko's fashions

i must profess my love for yoko ono's fashions that have typically been very overlooked in favor of typical photos of her and john naked, or dressed all in black, or in white during their Hair Peace days.

Look at how amazing Yoko's outfit is in this video. it has inspired me to come to school dressed in a copper colored v neck velour romper, tights, brown beach sandals, gold belt, and poofy loose fitting beret. this view is hard to watch since the interviewer says the most annoying offensive things to yoko. sigh..yoko had to put up with so much back then.

pass the dutchie

speaking of styilish youth that has lost its innocence (i.e. michael jackson) , this is a great video, that not only showcases an awesome song integral to pop culture, is a great source of fashion inspriation, and is a scathing criticism of the white supremacy of the legal system!

the lead singer of the band fell prey to a life of juvenile deliquency and drug use, and i think died at a really young age which is really sad.

i impulsivley spent 8 bucks on this record last year, which i kind of regret since i dont really listen to it since its only good for that one song.

oh well, im going to start wearing sleeveless bright colored sweatshirts, tight jeans and white high top sneaks!

edward said is smart. so is herman melville. george bush is not.

back in 2001, Edward Said compared Bush and his War on Terror to the the insane obsessed manaiacal Captain Ahab's destructive suicidal futile search for the White Whale . here's an excerpt from an interview that was printed in the Progressive where Said clarified what he meant by his comparison:

Q: In a recent article in the London Observer, you say the U.S. drive for war uncannily resembles Captain Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick. Tell me what you have in mind there.

Said: Captain Ahab was a man possessed with an obsessional drive to pursue the white whale which had harmed him--which had torn his leg out--to the ends of the Earth, no matter what happened. In the final scene of the novel, Captain Ahab is being borne out to sea, wrapped around the white whale with the rope of his own harpoon and going obviously to his death. It was a scene of almost suicidal finality. Now, all the words that George Bush used in public during the early stages of the crisis--"wanted, dead or alive," "a crusade," etc.--suggest not so much an orderly and considered progress towards bringing the man to justice according to international norms, but rather something apocalyptic, something of the order of the criminal atrocity itself. That will make matters a lot, lot worse, because there are always consequences. And it would seem to me that to give Osama bin Laden--who has been turned into Moby Dick, he's been made a symbol of all that's evil in the world--a kind of mythological proportion is really playing his game. I think we need to secularize the man. We need to bring him down to the realm of reality. Treat him as a criminal, as a man who is a demagogue, who has unlawfully unleashed violence against innocent people. Punish him accordingly, and don't bring down the world around him and ourselves.

a very merry thanksgiving to me, to me!

One of the most memorable Thanksgivings ever, was several years ago when my Filipino family-mom, dad, aunts and uncles, decided to have THIS for our thanksgiving meal, instead of the golden brown turkey that i had expected:



it was the year my Filipino aunties decided to forgo the turkey and instead have a LECHON, the traditional Filipino dish of a big ass super dead roasted pig in its entirety for thanksgiving, the sight of which would make any squeamish whitey faint dead on the ground. now, I am a huge fan of lechon, and I aint one to bat an eye at a roast pig, but that year, I wanted fucking turkey! so the sight of that damn pig really pissed me off, and i grumbled the whole night about how i hadn't expected to eat a roast pig for thanksgiving. the really funny thing was that a mysterious Filipino man with a jerrycurl wearing a blue jumpsuit delivered the lechon. the jumpsuit was unzipped down the front and he wasn't wearing a shirt underneath, so we could all see his bare chest and it was really shady. i was super suspicious of the lechon after seeing that strange man's jumpsuit and exposed chest and was hesitant to eat it.

what made it worse was that there was a cavernous hole cut int he side of the pig's gut, and we were supposed to dig the meat right out of the pig's gut, and my little cousins were picking off the pig's skin right off it and eating at it and my mom was screaming at me to get meat out of the pig's gut. i didn't eat much of it cause i wasn't too thrilled about actually eating the lechon meat directly from the pig's gut, since normally lechon is served in a milder more palatable form, all cut up already minus the pig head and body.

oh well, that was a really funny thanksgiving.

i remember watching the real world San Francisco, when Jo- the militant vegetarian- ate some roasted pig/lechon by accident, and subsequently went into convulsions and crying fits and tried to make herself throw up because she was so traumatized at having eaten roasted pig unknowingly and felt "the anguished soul of the animal she had just eaten. i remember thinking "what a dumb ass fucking ho."

p.s. this was the mildest photo of a lechon i could find. Every other photos have the potential to make people hurl, since for some reason lechons look like dismembered human bodies , or roasted fetuses, or are pictured with roasting spits impaling the lechons up their anooses.

anyhoo, i enjoyed thanksgiving at both my auntie's house this year and at jeff's family's too where both homes served turkey. my favorite thanksgiving food is stuffing and i ate and ate and ate so much of it it thought i was gonna die. Thanksgiving normally isn't a fun holiday though. since i was a high schooler, i can remember always being stressed out during thanksgiving since its so deadly close to finals or due dates for applications, that i can recall being really worried and anxiety ridden during almost every Thanksgiving of my adult life when ive had some test to study for, some application to turn in, some DBQ or paper to write, or some shit i have to outline.

but all in all, im happy and thankful to be alive and so blessed. i love my friends and i love my family!

p.p.s. i hope my full Native American friend doesn't hate my guts and think im an insensitive asshole for sending her a Happy Thanksgiving email today since i did agonize over whether to send it for a split second.

many rivers to cross.

it's saturday night, and im spending it alone with my bird and my evidence book, trying in vain to (begin) learning what the fuck evidence is in preparation for the final of doom that is all but a hop, skip, and stomach ache away..

as i cracked my book open to page 1 of chapter 1 and looked at the pages of my evidence book as if i was looking at them for the first time ever in my life, it's dawned on me that i have many rivers to cross before i know what this very important thing called evidence is. i'm told that its very useful to know as a lawyer, but will i know it ever, and in time for finals is the pressing question of the hour..

i paste below a video clip of one of my favorite song's ever, Many Rivers to Cross by reggae great Jimmy Cliff, a song about struggle, lonliness, waywardness and endurance. may its clarion call guide me forward to the river of understanding ..evidence that is.

one of my favorite people

One of my favorite favorite people EVER is Julie S*U, APALC's litigation director (the one on the left next to cornell west)

Julie came and spoke for my seminar on Monday, and she was so inspiring that I felt like weeping hysterically. Julie was the lead attorney on APALC's famous case representing the El Monte Thai garment workers, who had been working in virtual slavery as sweatshop workers for major textile corporations. Julie was a first year attorney fresh out of law school working as a Skadden fellow when she stumbled upon the case and convinced APALC to take it on. under her guidance, the case was settled and broke major ground, allowing cases to be litigated successfully afterwards on behalf of sweatshop workers.

as famous as julie is, she is one of the most down to earth and humble people i have ever met. she is the recipient of the macarthur genuius award but jerry told us that she prefers not to talk about it and she cringes if you even bring it up.

at the apalc anniversary banquet last night, julie volunteered to spend the entire night selling raffle tickets with all the other interns and volunteers, rather than taking it easy and chilling out since she's super famous and lots of people would have wanted to talk to her that night. instead she was out there with us interns, asking people to cough up 100 bucks for a raffle ticket. of course she ended up selling the most tickets out of all of us!

julie just has that amazing quality and charsima that i imagine is what every successful leader/politician has, in that i think she makes everyone she meets feel like she genuinely thinks they are amazing, and that they are the inspring one not her. a month ago, i emailed her asking her if i could ask her some questions for an article i was writing. i had introduced myself in my email and she wrote back saying "I am so sorry you felt like you had to introduce yourself, of course i know who you are!" I was shocked since I had only met her briefly at an event and said hi to her once in the APALC bathroom! anyways, she is so friendly and genuine that she could probably tell me i'd look amazing with a shaved head, and i'd beleive her.

our professor asked julie to talk to us sincce she is one of the finest examples of a "rebellious lawyer" that he knows. some things i learned from julie from hearing her talk were:

1. julie hated law school too and wanted to drop out! it was so comforting to hear that she too was alienated and silenced in law school. hearing her say that almost made me weep

2. julie had no idea what she was doing as a lawyer. she said she learned everything through a process of trial and error and was not afraid to make mistakes

3. julie involved her clients in the case as much as possible, asking them what they wanted to do, what their opinion was, and making them a part of the legal process as much as possible, which empowered them and taught her many lessons as a lawyer as well about what their best interest was

4. no matter what , julie seems liek shes stayed the most humble , down to earth and appreciative person who never puts on airs, nor takes credit for any accomplishments, and she has definately achieved so many accomplishments!

5. julie demonstrated how no matter how caught up you get in the minutia of the law, you can't forget your humanity and the humanity of the subordinated clients you are working with

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all doing direct the other way.."- Charles dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities"

as much as I can't stand that 19th century pickwick paper writing, Victorian society commenting, bleak house describing, British chimneysweep Charles dickens, I have to hand it to him for coming up with a quote that exactly sums up the way I feel, and have always felt about life, i.e. it really sucks and it is really awesome too! Oh the flux of life!

Sanctuary! Sanctuary!

it's election day today and ironically, I got a letter from Homeland security telling me that my Citizenship interview is scheduled for December 4, 2006. so with this being election day, and the day I found out that i am this much closer to being a citizen of the grand ole' US of A, my heart and soul are awash with a conflux of emotions.


all night I've been watching CNN, hanging on the edge of my sofa seat with excitement at the possibility of Dems taking back the house and senate, and feeling thoroughly engaged by the political processes before me. In previous years, I've tuned out of mainstream electoral politics like how George bush must tune out at NAACP conventions- with the sentiment that "this shit just doesn't concern me. I can't make a difference anyways so I'm just going to be blissfully ignorant as hell of the issues."

plus election day in previous years have always been a pain in the ass and a touchy subject since people left and right ask me "who I'm gonna vote for?" "did you vote?" "what candidate do you favor?" and "how are you going to vote on this proposition?"

most of the time, I'll resort to lying and will feign some half assed non-sensical opinion on electoral politics to avoid having to go into a long drawn out explanation about my immigration status and why I don't have citizenship yet.

a common response I get when I tell people I cant vote because I don't have citizenship is the person will gasp and say "WELL, why haven't you just filed for citizenship?" like it was some thought that just never occurred to me, and I was gonna reply and say , "Oh why LAWD , I aint neva even thought of that! My, Ima go down to the immigration office tomorrow and get the paperwork!! Thank you! I DONE OVERLOOKED THAT OPTION!"

but really, those people always mean well so I don't take offense, it just always surprises me how little well informed educated people-and progressive people even- know about how complex and difficult immigration laws are in this country, and how freakin' hard it is to naturalize if you don't have all the stars lined up for you, or if you happen to be from a country like say Mexico or the Philippines, where every damn person in that country is trying to get on over to the united states, and also happens to occupy the list of countries that pose a terrorist threat. if I weren't in law school I would try to make a name for myself as the Asian F.O.B. version of Weird Al Yankovich. I'd re-do the old Will Smith song, "Parents Just Don't Understand" and change it to "Man, Citizens Just Don't Understand."

I remember last election year, I was interning for the Nation , and of course all those white people constantly wanted to engage in a "Which presidential candidate do you back?", discussion all the time, when I honestly hadn't thought about it, didn't give a flying fuck who howard dean, dennis kucinich, or john Kerry were, and didn't even know who they were! but when I got asked that question by a Nation co-worker, I just made something up and said "oh you know, what he said!" and motioned to the white fool that praised john kerry before me and then said "oh I have to use the bathroom" and ran away!

anyways, I feel like Quasimodo swinging from the chandelier right now: jubilant, full of life, hope, and joy, but feel lonely still as a lurid and mute outsider. I'm jubilant and hopeful at the thought of finally having a blue fucking passport and being a citizen, full of life at the thought of being able to vote, and I feel happy that the Dems are winning all these seats, yet I still feel like an outsider in the sense that I can't vote and take part in this national project as a voter and engage in the political discussions in t eh same way US citizens can right now. and so like Quasimodo, I peer forlorn and lonesome from the rafters at other voters like the shy and deformed hunchback I am, wondering what it would be like to be like everyone else, and be able to vote, and/or not have a hump on my back, and wondering if and when I'll be a part of it all someday.

ugly betty

I'm too sleepy to blog anything tonight so i'm just gonna post this link to my Best Friend Chu Hui's post on Ugly Betty . it's really funny and i def. share the sentiment, since the concept of Ugly betty makes me really uncomfortable, since i roll out of the house in many of the same outfits, red glasses, and unruly hair as the main chracter of the show.

i cant help but assume that my law school peers assume that me and betty are one in the same! but whateves betty's sense of style is very endearing.

if they really wanted to make her ugly , they wouldve dressed her in a terry cloth juicy couture tube top and bleached her hair blonde

ye rin mok

my friend Ye Rinis a really talented photographer. check out her site! she takes really beautiful fashion photographs that have been in TOKION, SOMA, BUST, and other publications. Her photos were prominently featured in the Lions Gate film "Hard Candy" which opened in theaters in early 2006. her photos are very provocative, girly, flirtatious, thoughtful, lush, detail oriented and beautiful to look at!