Francesca Tanmizi

April 17th and 20th

April 17, 2008

The Indonesian Marketplace is FINALLY over! I’ve been planning this event the whole semester. It’s a food-tasting session & a display of traditional Indonesian items (some are for sale). I forced all my Indonesian friends to help out by using the “aren’t you proud of your country???” card. Two APSA members actually showed up to help and my room-mate did too so I was ecstatic.

For the marketplace, I had my mom ship a whole bunch of things from

Indonesia

. I was really worried she’s going to get me touristy things that doesn’t reflect the Indonesian culture at all (she wanted to initially) but luckily she got me authentic Indonesian stuff.

I’m so glad I was surrounded by friends during the event because some annoying incidents happened…people just came for the food and left without even looking at the things or chatting with any of us at the tables! I just feel that that is extremely rude but I guess you’ll get people who are there solely for the free food at every event.

There was also a girl who kept acting as if she was the one who planned the event and I was so incredibly annoyed. I hate people who take credit for others’ work. She didn’t do anything! All she did was show up at the event, declared she’s Indonesian, went straight for the Loyolan reporter, grabbed food and left without doing anything to help out.

My fellow Indonesians and I are also worried because we feel she is not the best representation of our culture. She has lived in

America

ever since she was a child (that’s over a decade) and to me, you’re practically American. She doesn’t know anything about the Indonesian culture at all and has offended some of my fellow Indonesians with her comments.

Things definitely went uphill after she left. I got so much support from LMU staff members. Chimin and Denise from the Office for International Students and Scholars (OISS) were awesome. *Chimin & Denise, if you’re reading this: Thank you so much for showing up, helping me email all the Indonesians at LMU and letting me use OISS as storage space. Thank you thank you thank you so much!*

I’m donating all the stuff to OISS and to Dr Harper from the

Art

Department

. I love how LMU staff and professors are so interested in different cultures. I mean, just talk to Dr Humphreys; he knows waaaayyy more about Indonesian culture than me!

I had fun planning the event but I’m just so glad it’s over. Oh, a mix-up happen and APSA (yeap, I got my club to sponsor my event) & BSU (Black Student Union) both requested a sound system. Luckily we’re all friends so we just took turns playing our music. It was really funny hearing gospel music, followed by Indonesian pop hits followed by even more gospel music.

April 20, 2008

Thank God the gamelan concert’s over! Dr Humphreys made us rehearse the whole day so I was extremely exhausted by the time the concert started. By the time the West African portion of the concert came and I was only conscious through sheer willpower. My friends told me I looked like I’m completely not into the dancing, which is kinda true since I was concentrating more on staying awake than dancing.

I messed up some of my parts in the gamelan part of the concert but luckily it’s Balinese music and I’m very sure the only ethnomusicologist in the room in Dr Humphreys so it’s ok. If anyone tells me it sounds wrong, all I have to do is act offended and demand, “Are you an ethnomusicologist? Are you Balinese or have lived in

Bali

for more than 5 years? No? Then that’s the way it’s done in

Bali

! Why do you hate my culture?”

I told my friends to sit in the front row during the concert without telling them that audience members get dragged on-stage during one of the dances…and everyone in the front row’s fair game. They were ready to slaughter me. I was nice to Christi though. She has supported every single one of my concerts so I told her to sit right in the middle where it’s hard for the dancers to reach her.

April 5th - 13th

February 16, 2008

I am sick. I feel lethargic, stuffy, crummy and cranky. It’s best to avoid me today.

Yesterday was not a good day. I had to go to watch “The Dead” for my Theatre in LA class and everyone got lost since it’s in such a remote location. I had to drive there alone since my carpool buddy’s going home straight away and had to get out of my car to ask for directions twice.

Oh, and I crashed my car into a curb while making a u-turn and now there’s metal bits flaking of the front and my car makes a funny noise whenever I brake. My friends tell me my car should be fine so that’s great news.

After the play was over, I was so exhausted that I could feel myself getting sick. I could barely drive back home and managed to drag myself into my apartment only through sheer willpower. So that’s how I got sick.

The play was amazing though. If you’re in LA, watch it. It has the most gorgeous songs and I caught myself humming the tunes while driving back. I’m definitely watching it again. I could rave on and on about it but my ravings could probably be condensed into: “It’s awesome! So awesome! I love it! It’s AWESOME! WATCH IT!”

Actually, the play makes up for all the unfortunate things that I went through so all in all, yesterday was actually a great day.

February 17, 2008

It’s 4pm and I’m still in my pyjamas. Yes I’m still sick. I have my baggy, pink sweatshirt on since it’s cold and I had to go take out the recycling. Coupled with my pink pyjama pants, I looked like a giant, pink marshmallow. Oh well, I figured that the recycling bins won’t judge me.

I probably shouldn’t have gone to the UCLA dance marathon yesterday but I promised my friend, David, that I’d go to support him. He’s dancing for 26 hours for pediatric AIDS and I totally salute him for that. Alexis, Shawn and I went to support him from 9pm-midnight and the theme for that slot was the 80s.

I wore bright blue socks, gigantic, glittery and plastic hoop earrings, an oversized t-shirt and bright blue, knee-high socks. Yep. I also wore bright blue and gold eye-shadow, which looks surprisingly good on Asian eyes with single lids (blue on the outer corner, gold on the inner corner and blend both colours in the middle).

David had spandex on. And Crocs. I shall not comment.

Alexis looked so cute! Her hair was gorgeous and she had that whole feathery-hair thing going on. Shawn wore exercise gear and looked surprisingly good. Though Alexis keeps calling him “bumble-bee.”

It was definitely fun even though I was feeling really sick.

February 16th and 17th

February 16, 2008

I am sick. I feel lethargic, stuffy, crummy and cranky. It’s best to avoid me today.

Yesterday was not a good day. I had to go to watch “The Dead” for my Theatre in LA class and everyone got lost since it’s in such a remote location. I had to drive there alone since my carpool buddy’s going home straight away and had to get out of my car to ask for directions twice.

Oh, and I crashed my car into a curb while making a u-turn and now there’s metal bits flaking of the front and my car makes a funny noise whenever I brake. My friends tell me my car should be fine so that’s great news.

After the play was over, I was so exhausted that I could feel myself getting sick. I could barely drive back home and managed to drag myself into my apartment only through sheer willpower. So that’s how I got sick.

The play was amazing though. If you’re in LA, watch it. It has the most gorgeous songs and I caught myself humming the tunes while driving back. I’m definitely watching it again. I could rave on and on about it but my ravings could probably be condensed into: “It’s awesome! So awesome! I love it! It’s AWESOME! WATCH IT!”

Actually, the play makes up for all the unfortunate things that I went through so all in all, yesterday was actually a great day.

February 17, 2008

It’s 4pm and I’m still in my pyjamas. Yes I’m still sick. I have my baggy, pink sweatshirt on since it’s cold and I had to go take out the recycling. Coupled with my pink pyjama pants, I looked like a giant, pink marshmallow. Oh well, I figured that the recycling bins won’t judge me.

I probably shouldn’t have gone to the UCLA dance marathon yesterday but I promised my friend, David, that I’d go to support him. He’s dancing for 26 hours for pediatric AIDS and I totally salute him for that. Alexis, Shawn and I went to support him from 9pm-midnight and the theme for that slot was the 80s.

I wore bright blue socks, gigantic, glittery and plastic hoop earrings, an oversized t-shirt and bright blue, knee-high socks. Yep. I also wore bright blue and gold eye-shadow, which looks surprisingly good on Asian eyes with single lids (blue on the outer corner, gold on the inner corner and blend both colours in the middle).

David had spandex on. And Crocs. I shall not comment.

Alexis looked so cute! Her hair was gorgeous and she had that whole feathery-hair thing going on. Shawn wore exercise gear and looked surprisingly good. Though Alexis keeps calling him “bumble-bee.”

It was definitely fun even though I was feeling really sick.

13 January, 08

Day before school starts! I had to re-register my OneCard and check into my apartment today. Kinda annoying since I’ve been wandering in and out my apartment the whole break so I don’t see why I have to check in as if I’ve just arrived here, but I know it’s for the sake of security.

My mom flew back to Indonesia today and it’s harder than usual for some reason. I was feeling extra clingy the entire day and nearly held her handbag hostage to stop her from leaving. Maybe it’s mid-life separation anxiety, part of mid-life crisis or something. So at 19, I start acting like I’m 2 and at 40, I’ll start acting like I’m 20 and proceed to buy a sports car.

Or maybe it’s because I’m sick so I wish my mummy’s here to baby me. Sometimes I’m so jealous of all the LMU students from Orange County (it seems to be at least half the school sometimes).  It’s just an hour’s drive away from school so they can easily go home whenever they want. That’s definitely something that’s not exactly possible when your home is an 18-hour flight away.

Never mind. We international students get an entire office dedicated to us (Office for International Students & Scholars. Take that OC-ers! You don’t get an Office for Orange County Students & Scholars!).

Oh yeah, and careless international students like me get to tell the most amazing stories involving American immigration officials (“Oh, nothing much happened during the holidays…nearly got deported out of America for losing my I-20 but besides that, not much…”).

Yes, I once lost my I-20 and only discovered the loss while I was trying to get through immigration. Not fun.

I called my roommate in tears and got her completely freaked out since it was a Sunday and all the offices in school weren’t open. The immigration officers were horrible too. One of them yelled at me because apparently, you’re not allowed to have a cell phone when you’re detained. The officer I had to face was extremely mean until he saw my birthday. I was still 17 at that time and he decided I was “still a baby” and he’s shocked my parents would let me travel all by myself. I decided to exploit the “baby” card and proceeded to burst into tears.

In my defence, at least I didn’t get deported.

Chimin and Denise (the staff of OISS) had to take care of all the legal headache and I’m still eternally in their debt.

Francesca's First Blog

         Wow. I can’t believe the semester is going so quickly. It still feels as if the semester just started. It’s probably because I have a lot going on. Just this weekend alone, I went for the APSA scary movie night, APSA Knott Scary Farm trip (yes, I attend a lot of APSA events…I’m the president so I kind of have to attend them) and the Music Faculty Recital.

         Oh, the Music Faculty Recital was amazing. My piano teacher, Dr Kocyan, performed and he was amazing. He was playing the same song I was learning how to play and whatever I’m playing did not sound like what he played. Guess I’ll work on that piece for the next five years or so.

To everyone going to LMU: TAKE A CLASS WITH DR KOCYAN! When else do you get a chance to take piano lessons with a world famous pianist? My barely existent piano playing skills increased threefold with just 2 months of lessons with him.

        I can’t blog for too long, I have a paper due on Tuesday but I’m meeting my teacher, Dr O’Brien, to talk about it so I obviously have to have something to show her. Since my paper is still in the “brainstorming phase” (i.e. a series of completely incoherent phrases strung together masquerading as sentences), I’m really tempted to cancel on her but she’s nice enough to make extra time for me so I can’t do that. I still can’t get over this part of LMU. Teachers here have office hours, which I tend to define as, “a time slot teachers have to set aside each week to get harassed by students demanding for a better grade”. Well, it’s also a time to chat with the professor, get to know them and so on and I do drop by just to chat with certain professors but usually I tend to just harass them for better grades.

Some people avoid going to office hours because they don’t want the teachers to know who they are but that’s kind of stupid. There are about 20-30 people in each class (35 at the most) so most likely, the teacher knows who you are. And if you’re doing badly, office hours are good times to explain yourself. I know a fellow international student who will schedule office hours just to use the “English is my second language” card and pretend she needed “help” understanding the lectures. She swears it helps her grades. I would do the same thing but being a Loyolan staff writer significantly reduces the credibility of that excuse. Sad!