The passing of time and all of its crimes is making me sad again.

Yesterday I checked my facebook and saw this:

Um. No. People. People, please. Let’s draw a distinction. I am not your friend. Ignore that song and dance from my last post. I am just some girl who was mistakenly given an advice column on the website of a clothing brand you like. In the immortal words of Eminem: You don’t know me, you’re too old, let go (nobody listens to techno). Although in this case I guess you’re too young, but whatever. The point is I’m old, and all this internet based friendship freaks me out. In my day, friends were people you spoke to in real life, face-to-face, or perhaps over the phone. You share meals and jokes. (I also walked five miles to school in the snow with only NKOTB flip flops on). But now I have friends I haven’t seen so long their faces have been obliterated by their AIM icons (Nico, you are forever going to be a bucket of KFC to me) and people I have never laid eyes on adding me as their “friend” on Facebook. And more likely than not, it’s my own inability to grasp the changes in technology and their impact on human relationships (Jens had to explain Twitter to me, check that out HERE). Or maybe it’s my antiquated and romantic notions about tactile forms of communication (I think the only people who get handwritten letters these days are people in prison and people with friends in prison). Whatever it is, the moral of this story is that if you’re reading this, don’t add me on Facebook. Unless you’re in prison.

xx,
Yasi

ps If you’re on the Lakers, you can totally add me. Lamar and Trevor, you especially. Morrison, I don’t care that you look like a trailer park inhabitant that drives an unmarked white astro van. Even you, weird tall bench-warming Asian guy. Add away.

Don’t you know you can’t get near me, you can only hope to hear me.

Feb 14, 6:36AM – Subject: lighter in lighter out

Dear Yasi,
Please inform your reader C that the airport lighter policy he asked about in his 6th question is actually in full effect in China. And it works wonderfully!

As for my question, will you be my friend?

Shao

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Feb 24, 1:33AM – Subject: re: lighter in lighter out

ah, but did you tell C that the lighter policy works?

Shao

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Feb 24, 1:54AM – Subject: lighter in lighter out

furthermore, i respectfully disagree with your judgment that “will you be my friend?” is not a good question. friendships are the binds that bring people together. your friendsships are what teach you more about yourself, and about humanity as a whole.

so in short, i think, while it’s not always necessary to be verbalized, “will you be my friend?” is the best question i could ask, and all that i can hope to be asked.

i dont know why im telling you this.

Shao
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Shao,

I don’t know why either, but you’ve effectively made me feel bad for grouchily underestimating the value of friendship and hurting your feelings and having no heart and so on and so forth. If I were lazy and predictable what I would do here is conjure up some quote from Wilde (maybe something like “It is a very dangerous thing to know one’s friends”) but I’m not, so I won’t. Ok, so I am and I did. See? You don’t want to be friends with me. I’m sort of mean and I have somewhat terrible taste in television and I’ll make you eat fast food way too often and I sometimes listen to John Mayer (”Say What You Need To Say” is my jam, yeah I said it). Basically what I’m saying that if you knew me better you probably wouldn’t want to be friends with me and in that same vein if we all knew each other just a little better we’d probably resort to only communicating via Facebook and Twitter and smoke signals and carrier pigeons and messages in goddamn bottles. Or maybe that is to avoid knowing each other better. I don’t know.

(I just sat in a class in which my classmates argued, with conviction, that Nike’s use of sweatshops in the late eighties and early nineties was totally justifiable because a day rate of $1.24 for a twelve year old girl working eleven hours is just what the free market mandates. And that furthermore, Indonesia is lucky to have Nike there in the first place making their world a better place by giving them a source of pride and achievement. One guy even said, in total sincerity, that the children of Indonesia usually don’t continue their educations past primary school so in fact they are BORED after the age of 10 and need something to occupy their time. Like sewing Air Force Ones in a windowless factory six days a week. Kill me).***

xx,
Yasi

*** Nike has obviously since corrected their labor practices and this is no commentary on the current state of affairs at Just Do It headquarters, don’t come after me, I love you Lena.

E-mail Yasi your question at AskYasi@thehundreds.com. There is absolutely no guarantee she will answer your question, but at least you can tell your friends you talked to a girl.

Bouncing here and there and everywhere.

Oh hey. I have no answers to post today because no one has sent me any near halfway decent question in the past 2 weeks. No, Shao, “will you be my friend?” does not constitute a good question.

So in the meantime, I thought I’d share Sherman with you. He lives on the folder I take to school. Yes to grad school. So?

xx,
Yasi

But Fonda ain’t got a motor in the back of her Honda.

Today in even creepier emails…

Subject: Hello there Ms. Yasi!

Today, I finally decided to log onto my blog and post a few things, right? I was curious to see how many people have been checkin up on me. So i was looking and looking and found something veryyyyyy interesting. check out the picture attached, i swear it isn’t some pervo steez picture. Definitely SFW material! Peoples be watchin for you son!

Modern Day Monster
http://www.moderndaymonster.com
CLICK THE BUTT

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So, um, this is a compliment (I think). Although 8 searches vs 116 for Rachel Solari is pretty pathetic. Even if she does get naked for a living.

xx,
Yasi

ps the koala is to commemorate that Alice is back in town. Expect some tough Australian love on here soon.

E-mail Yasi your question at AskYasi@thehundreds.com. There is absolutely no guarantee she will answer your question, but at least you can tell your friends you talked to a girl.

I can’t tell you what I learned from school, but I could tell you a story or two.

(no subject)

Dear Yasi,

I just read your recent entry titled “ANY FOOL CAN THINK OF WORDS THAT RHYME.” and would like to know how you felt about your experience at UCSB and the school in general (programs, job opps , rankings , professors , etc)? I know that UCSB is a solid school, but did you ever have the thoughts of going to community college in order to transfer to UCLA / UCB because of the decent transfer rates (around 35% to UCB , 40% LA) ? I was at , well lets say the UC institution located in La Jolla, and left after this past fall quarter. Even though the transfer rates are seemingly good, it is not guaranteed, and there is a possibility that I might end up at UCSB.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that would you have left something good for the chance of something better or just settle with it? Also, what made you decide to stay at UCSB or at least help you overcome the rejection from Berkeley? I guess this struggling economy has left me worried about college and my degree. I mean the ivy league schools are heavily recruited and some econ firms don’t even have any schools in CA besides Berkeley and Stanford on their drop down list in their online application. I don’t feel that I would have a legitimate chance at the job if my school was listed as USWEST OTHER(which probably is a big list as well). Well, thanks for your time and sorry for the semi rant and lack of organization.

Regards,
V

PS: I know you might say something like go to collegeconfidential forums, but going there would provide me with a different viewpoint. Actually, not so much different but just different varieties of the same Asian views I am already receiving.. “go to berkeley/ucla/stanford/ivyleague , any of the “elite” schools”. I was hoping to get the opinion from a recent grad and coincidentally it seems like you still have the sting from the berkeley rejection(my apologies) too.
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V,

Because you sound like my dad did when I was 18 and you gave me horrible nausea-inducing flashbacks to that time, I feel entitled to let you in on a little secret. For most people, it doesn’t really fucking matter where you go to school. There are a few exceptions to this rule. If you plan to go to grad school, specifically a good grad school, then it might matter a little where you went, in combination with your GPA. Also, instead of looking at rankings, think more specifically about what you want to get out of school. For example, the UCs are very very theoretical. That means if you want to be a journalist, they will not teach you that. Instead they will teach you communication theory, and you will read books which contain sentences such as “National communication is the communication of the people of a nation,” and “While men and women are very similar, there are also many differences between the two sexes.” Real hard-hitting stuff like that. Riveting, right? Ans in terms on internships, at that time I still wanted to be a writer (because I was still naive and starry-eyed) and I got a plum internship at the Santa Barbara Independent newspaper. It’s sort of like the LA Weekly except about 15 people read it. My first published piece was a review of this horrible Renee Zellweger/Ewan Mcgregor film “Down With Love.” I subsequently got hate mail from an older gentleman who said I was bitter and didn’t know anything about true love. But that’s neither here nor there.

It sounds like you’ve chosen a pretty narrow fucking path for yourself at the age of 17. How do you know that what you want to do will be the same thing you want to do in four years (or 5 or 6, depending on your level of dedication/involvement in drugs)? Yes, I was sad I didn’t get into Berkeley but oh fucking well. I’m more sad I didn’t prioritize living in a big city closer to opportunity, which is what I suggest you do.

And for the record, I have no fucking idea what collegeconfidential is.

xx,
Yasi

E-mail Yasi your question at AskYasi@thehundreds.com. There is absolutely no guarantee she will answer your question, but at least you can tell your friends you talked to a girl.