summer in the city

Pictures are from:
-Kerry Park in Queen Anne
-Summer Solstice Parade


3 more weeks of summer school.
5 more weeks till epic road trip from LA to Chicago
6 more weeks till seeing PASSION PIT perform at House of Blues in Chicago.
and three extra weeks of searching for the elusive American Dream from Milwaukee all the way to wherever Yusuf aka Cat Steven's Wind takes us.

I have decided to push back graduation. I'm going to be done fall quarter of 2010 instead of spring. I'm going to do study abroad instead. I'm thinking... Prague, Sweden, Ghana or Brussels.


Summer in the city, I'm so lonely lonely lonely
I've been hallucinating you, babe, at the backs of other women
And I tap on their shoulder and they turn around smiling
But there's no recognition in their eyes.



Peace and love. Happy Summerin'.

bio

Carolyn Huynh is a junior at Seattle University and is currently working towards a B.A. in journalism. Her aspirations consist of writing faux journalism for The Onion and penning an Oprah Book Club-worthy novel. She is not interested in The New York Times. She enjoys traveling, the environment, freerice.com, science-fiction, and pretending that she is actually going to make it in life.


This was the hardest thing I ever had to write. I didn't even make it to 200 words. I know nothing about myself. I don't know what my interests or hobbies are. I do not know why I am going into journalism. Or why I like writing. I did however feel like the world's biggest douche trying to write this. Very Charlie Kaufman circa Adaptation. Narcissism at its greatest.

I am currently in Stumptown stealing internet (I forgot what life without internet is like. I feel like a raging philistine.)

I am battling allergies left and right. My immune system has forsaken me. I am susceptible to everything now. Dirt, air, dust, idiocy, the outside world in general.


Anyway, summer solstice parade was awesome. It was the closet thing I'm going to get to any action this summer. Being pervy and watching a bunch of old nekkid people riding around on bikes.

My life is sad. I'm off on a quest to see if any photo specialist can get my film developed. (It had gotten overexposed in my Ricoh and Walgreen's was unable to mend it. :(. Very disappointing.)

Carry on, Wayward Woman

What is the point of blogs/blogging? Yeah, they're supposed to be America's salvation, a public diary of sorts, the poster child for the first amendment, the murderer of print media... whatever. Am I so narcissistic to believe that people actually want to read about my boring plebian lifestyle? People write in blogs because they couldn't get published anywhere else. True story. Got rejected from The New Yorker when I was 16. But then again everyone gets rejected from the New Yorker. It's just the poor writer's excuse to continue to wallow in self-pity. Hell, I've been using the same excuse for four years.

I've become a cliche. A hackneyed hack of a human being. Wait, stop me if I'm being my cyclical cynical self! :)!

I return to Seattle tomorrow. I am not sure if I want to leave (first time that feeling has ever crept into my mindset). I feel comfortable here. Sheltered. I stay up till 6 in the morning, puttering around my room, reading sci-fi books by the fistful, watching instant-play Netflix movies with Xxxtina's account... See, here in my old childhood room, I don't have to deal with stupid people. I don't have to deal with dumb boys or crazy girls - all my troubles have been stored away in Seattle.

For the first time in my life, I feel quite content with California. I will miss everyone dearly - this past week has been bizarre and has made me [metaphorically] teary-eyed thinking about leaving.

My family is still the same. A gathering of the oddest group of people to ever be categorized as a family. They are all still suffering from self-esteem issues, paranoia, bi-polarism, depression, etc ... and just recently I have found out, high-blood pressure. Family's family. And once again, my dog is still the only sane one out of the bunch. I will miss them all. Affection isn't something we Huynhs' like to practice, but there is a silent understanding amidst all the yelling and sarcastic comments that we care for each other. (I think.)

I start school again on Monday. Will it never cease! My grades for this past quarter were once again, mediocre. Straight B's and one B+. Doing the bare minimum has lost its appeal to me. Don't let my apathetic exterior fool you, I actually do want to be successful in life. And yes, I do want to get into law school. I am an intelligent person, I just never purposely chose to utilize it towards my educational career. I need to raise my GPA. I can't wait to be done with Seattle in a year. If all goes well, and I actually man up and take control of my life - I will hopefully be studying in Boston soon enough.

I still cannot believe that I'm a junior. In college. I turn 20 in September (I know, I'm young). My god. Now isn't the time for an Alex Kasper mid-life crisis moment. But holy shit? Everyone I know turns 21 this year. I can now go bar hopping with friends instead of with Drug Lord of Seattle U. This excites me to no end. Fwiends are nice.

Boo to summer school. Yay for everything else. I am volunteering at Richard Hugo House for ZAPP publishing this summer. STOKED. Will also continue sad quest for summer job. Pumped for road trip. Christina's sister, Crystal, is moving to Chicago - so she has given us (aka Dumb and Dumber) the task of moving her Prius from LA to Chicago. 2077 miles nonstop. Crossing 6 or 7 states. Lots of booze. No money for motels. Dirty as hell. Should be a riot. Will probably spend a week in Chicago and then visit neighboring cities. I assume... Omaha, Milwaukee (we can visit the cabin where Bon Iver locked himself up in!), Cincinnati, Minneapolis - though I really want to go to Mississippi, but that might be out of the way.. I estimate at least a month of traveling looking for that flighty temptress, the so-called American Dream.

Ah! it is 3:23 in the morning. I have wasted precious time from watching episodes of Death Note.



Seattle, I will see you later.

To end this pointless blog on a cuter note:





Buckley says hello. : )

My fellow Americans

"The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy."
-Richard Nixon

Changing my major. The press is the enemy. So are the two journalism professors I've managed to piss off. I have managed to make enemies with the smallest department at SU. There are only three journalism professors and two of them aren't too keen on me (there were many reasons at play, I do not wish to divulge what I said/did/etc. It is not my fault they think I am an insolent self-righteous prick with a laissez-faire attitude on constructive criticism.) The other one is leaving next year on sabbatical (and she was the only one that thought I had the chops to make it). Right now, I am either considering going into political science or computer science. Poli sci majors are usually douches. Computer science majors like to program. I am a douchebag and like to mess around with coding. Perfect. I am still taking the LSATs in December, so my douchebag level will only be intensified with time. It was inevitable that I would eventually succumb to the inner douche inside of me.

Thank the Alpha and the Omega that this quarter is over. While I am leaving journalism behind next school year, I ironically got hired by the Spectator to be on their staff for the 09-10 school year. $900-1000 a quarter? I'll take it. If I can't defend myself in a classroom, I'll defend myself through a Jesuit-run school newspaper.

I leave for California in two days. Am more than happy to be out of this hell-hole and leave behind a life of insolvency for a full-size bed, bad tv, familiar faces, my dog, and a mother who will give me money to buy food. No more cruddy bed sans a bed frame, no more one-meal-a-day, no more sad attempts at scouting for a job... no more college cliches, si'l vous plait. Though, I am coming back in a week, so it's not like I can escape this shitty life 4ever. An unmediated vacation is always nice though. A protracted vacation would be nicer.



Current interests:
-sci-fi. Watched the entire season of Firefly in one day. Loved it. Reminded me a lot of Cowboy Bebop. And I love Cowboy Bebop. Am going back to the basics of sci-fi. i.e. reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.
-Star Trek. Okay, I hate to be one of those people that suddenly become interested in a cult-classic because they made a blockbuster movie out of it and slapped on a high-profile director - but goddamnit, that movie was so good it made me interested in the series. I have seen a few episodes, but they were more of background noise for me while I did homework in high school. This time, it has my full attention. "Damnit Jim! I'm a doctor not a physicist!" Classy.
-Harry Potter. Am returning to my roots. Reread the 7th book in two days. Starting on the 6th book now. Sort of going in reverse? You know: Harry kills Voldemort, Dumbledore dies, Harry kisses the Asian chick, Cedric dies, Harry finds out he has a godfather, Harry kills a big snake, Harry finds out he's a wizard. All that good stuff.

Wow, I am a nerd..?



Off to Shinka to study for a bit. Afterwards will be going to the gun range tonight with Aubs, Cherl, and Alex S. to hold and shoot a gun for the first time. It's ladies night - free rentals.

There are only two sure ways to kill a man: with a woman or with a .45 caliber gun. Choose your weapon.

gonzo journalism? more like cute journalism.

This is Carolyn Huynh reporting for cute journalism. I'm pretty proud of this video - considering we had 4 weeks to work on it and I did it all in 4 days. It's pretty rough, but you get the idea.