Onasteek Updates

my stomach hurts. it always hurts if i get "colded" in the morning. i know this isn't normal, and that there must be some medical or physical condition associated with this. it's like a radiating pain from the stomach area. it usually starts as a dull ache and grows more and more painful. it hurts like a mother-mother (to paraphrase jeff lee); i am literally incapacitated for the duration of the full pain.

then it goes away. but it always comes back several times (at least 3-4). the only good thing is that it ends usually by noon.

what is wrong with me?

forgot to mention the weird dream i had....i dreamed that i broke the neck of a small unruly dog while trying to discipline it... freaked the heck out of me, especially considering it wasn't my dog! it was this small yellowish-orangish fur (looked a lot like a smaller version of Lucy, one of the dogs I stayed with in Houston), and it kept barking and running away from me... so i hit it a couple times, thinking it was resilient enough. but when i set it down with its back on the ground, it just lay there, unmoving. at first i thought it was just finally behaving, but even a behaving dog doesn't stick its legs straight up in the air. so i freaked. i hope it's not foreshadowing, because i love dogs and plan to get one in the next two years.

funny caveat: after hearing the dream, Mom told me she had one last week about cooking fish live (supposedly, on some cooking show, she had heard that cooking a fish live--or killing it right before cooking--made the fish taste better). that night, she dreamt that hundreds of fish visited our home... but thankfully, she said they weren't bent on revenge. nonetheless, it was scary enough that she hasn't bought fish since. hehe.

i guess it's monday update time. last week was cool... with jeff and tony gone to the anime convention, i had the place to myself... but i was out for most of the weekend... i think i'm getting narcolepsy or something... i keep falling asleep everywhere i go.

well, i guess i shouldn't rule out sleep deprivation. weekend was good. met some new people at church. on saturday, hung out with chhay for a bit, then went home, but was picked up by sarah, sonya and lynnette--friend from houston whom i haven't seen in a while--to celebrate sarah's end-of-MCATs.

so we went to cheesecake factory in skokie, but because of some water main explosion in the area, they weren't seating anyone. so we went to CPK instead. me love pizza.

and that's that.

Lessee... anything? Well, not really. I've been covering some fairly mundane stories as of late, but the fun aspect of it is finding out something new that no one has reported yet. Like, I was covering bike racks on Pace buses, which is mundane... but I found out that the CTA is also in negotiation talks to install these racks on all 2,000 of their buses, and may begin as early as next fall. Yeah yeah, once again, not the most compelling of stories, but things like this definitely impact the general mass transit-riding public, you know?

So it's like you're doing something important. :)

Hmm, once again, been a long time between postings... I've been busy gathering information all day for stories that they're forcing me to churn out by the 5pm deadline every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It's fun!

One of the people next to me just commented on how it's like giving birth every day--painful, long, tiring, with a lot of waiting.

Happy birthday again, Sonya. Okay, back to work.

Haven't updated in a few days. I'm just excited to be doing what I am.... although I bombed on that stupid quiz in Urban issues.... the problem was that i read all the material too early in the week (I just happened to have a lot of time) and then I forgot who wrote which about what by the time Friday rolled around.... arg. And I thought I was being a good student.

Moral: Wait till the last minute to do all your reading.

They say you never forget your first time...
http://www.louish.com/onasteek/article-freight.gif

I'm published! This article ran for sure in the Daily Southtown and possibly in the Illinois Times. I'm like... a journalist! How odd! I mean, sure it was reworked up and down between my editor and me, and it's not the most compelling of articles.... but it's the first.

And that has made all the difference.

Check out the guy in the photo, then check out the caption:
Who is this?

So that's the rumored other Owen. :) I first heard about him when I randomly entered my name into an ICQ search and came up with two names. Anyway, since he's my age, congratulations to him on his likely graduation last year.

Glamour is scary. I wonder how much it can go to your head. I'm curious what happens to someone when people you don't know know who you are. It's sorta scary. Growing up in the one-industry town of LA lets you see first-hand how these things unfold, like some real-life E! True Hollywood Story. It's strange that I went to school with people whose parents were in the "industry," that Lily knew Steven Spielberg's son, that I have friends who now aspire to be screenwriters and directors. It's cool, too. Everyone has their goals and dreams, and more power to you if you can realize those hopes.

What am I writing??? Hmm, it's pretty early in the morning... I think I need to do this more often. I sound high. Or philisophical. Or both.

Yesterday's movie did get me thinking that it's sure been a long time since I've delved into issues of Asian America and our identity in the framework of this country. Obviously, race is a hot (albeit somtimes hackneyed) topic in the U.S., but I haven't seriously considered my place as an Asian American in the media, or as the only Asian American male in my entering class... etc. etc. etc. And to an extent that's pretty cool. Like the movie, it hopefully could mean that I'm just being me.

Had this discussion about celebrity last night.. well, more like half a discussion. They're just regular people somewhere in there. :) Maybe I just need to pick my nose and shake their hand. (you'd understand if you knew the context)

Saw a really good film today by director Justin Chen called "Better Luck Tomorrow." Gosh darn it, my computer is doing the weird thing again where it's eating up my keystrokes so I end up missing letters. Anyway, the film was very well done. I was impressed with the cinematography and the passion that went into it. There were many scenes I could relate to (not that I do drugs or rob stores, but like the cast and crew, who were at the screening tonight, said, it really deals with all sorts of issues that highschoolers go through). Best of all, the lead characters were all Asian American, but the issues they dealt with were universal. No stereotypes, no kung-fu, no funky accents (except as a joke during the Q&A session).

So if anyone from MTV is reading this (they bought the film after the Sundance Film Festival) take note that there will definitely be an Asian demographic going to see this film when it comes out. I'll make sure of it.

On a personal note, edited several projects together today. Okay, so I'm a newsman, not a director, but it was fun making Jeff make that shake... and I was enthralled by the colors and lighting I got from the origami sequence. (It was all part of a video project we had to shoot for broadcast producing class)

In honor of Jeff's burgeoning acting carrer, the alternative Quote of the Day is, "Now that's a good shake!" (with accompanying hand slam)

Realized today that many people in their blogs/journals like to put up interesting anecdotes... I on the other hand, give these broad generalizations of my day. So, in an effort to be more interesting, I guess I will try to be more anecdotal... of course, I'm don't think I'm very good at telling stories.

Today's Link: (Disclaimer: BEWARE, bad math jokes ahead) http://www.proaxis.com/~settlet/math/mathjokes1.html

"What happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning? Same thing as everything else." - the X-Men movie.

I missed church today... well, I missed Bethel... but it was all good, because Justin Chen, Chantal Liu, and a slew of people I don't usually hang out with were all at EBF, the church I ended up going to. And then we had lunch together.

I need a haircut. I also need to get my retained from Mom... I think my TMJ is acting up.

Realized something today... you know what they call a girl with only guy friends? Attractive.

By the way, I guess I have some fairly faithful followers of the QOTD. Thanks goes out to all you guys. Sign my guestbook or ask me questions! :)

Okay, coolest thing today... Neil was cooking with Martin Yan during the performance... I like Neil. He was my prospie at NU. That is, I hosted him and then he came to NU. Hahah... I know I know, correlation is not causation. Anyway, I also got a call today from the AAJA student project people, and I'm a finalist for the anchor position! They'll let me know in a week. Wouldn't that be awesome, anchoring the television news project at the annual convention only one year after deciding to become a journalist. Okay, daylight savings beckons me to bed... Sleep tight, all yalls.

So I'm back from the AAJA dinner... there were some good speakers, some good presentations, and some definitely good food.... so bad of those AAJA people to tempt us with fancy shmancy hotels that we will not get to stay in for at least the next 30 years... It's sad when they make jokes about making $12,000 a year, and they're speaking from experience... I think I made more at Banana Republic than that.

But seriously (not that I wasn't before), the dinner was great. Met nice people... well, I definitely met people... and I met people who knew Nydia, my "mentor" in Houston. That was cool. And there was a pretty good jazz band performing that night, too.

I have to be up early tomorrow. Arg, I think I'll email Denise and let her know I'll be late.

Did I ever tell you my favorite children's book? It's "The Trumpet of the Swan," by E.B. White. Yeah, I liked "Charlotte's Web" like every other kid, but the first time I got through the story of Louis the mute swan's struggle to find a voice in life, I was enrapt by the very idea of a swan that could produce music that was like "a jewel held up to the light." It was the longest book I had read by that time, and I was so proud when I had finished.

Jeez, I probably read that book two more times in the next month, and at least ten times over the next year. I enjoyed the silly swan father who thought a "superficial" wound was a serious one. I mimicked the boy who walked "Indian style, one foot in front of the other" so as to make as little sound as possible. And I remember that he won the heart of the beautiful female swan who couldn't read and write, but knew the language of music.

It was because of that book that I spent 7 years of my life learning the trumpet, and 2 years learning how to imitate stupid trumpet noises with my mouth.

Man, it's been a long time since I saw that book... ever since we moved to Northridge, I think it's been in storage. And I refuse to watch the cartoon movie because of all the pictures I have imagined stored up in my head... you know what I mean? It's like, I can never read Tolkien untainted because of the movie, albeit a good movie.

Hmm.. I guess the reason I thought of this was because of someone I was talking to earlier.

So, I'm now the Mass Transit reporter for the Medill News Service in Chicago. Whoopee.

On the bright side, virtually everyone in the city is affected by the transportation system, so there is some opportunity to report on interesting developments.

And while I'm ready to go home, I think it's time to get some work done. CTA, beware! Just kidding.

On a completely different note, Pectus Excavatus is now up and running. I'm excited about it... basically, it's my attempt at making my site more interactive and interesting. I wanted to do this without a bulletin board/message board system. So now people can read and react to what other people have to say.

Finally in class, once more. Broadcast Producing today, should be interesting. We get to play with cameras and footage and there's even a scavenger hunt. Whee. Well, I'm sorta glad to be back in class... Self-indulgence is great, but it tries the nerves after a while... If you're not sure as to what I was self-indulging in, please refer to my Quote of the Day page.

Free Jamba Juice Smoothies (in Evanston on the 16th, from 8-10am)
Salon.com: Where are the Mahirs of yesteryear?