settling in

I am finally getting back into that groove. That So Cal groove that I usually adopt whenever I'm back at home during summers or breaks. Reading the LA Times before my parents can get to it (if I'm lucky and wake early). Making tea in my skivvies. Eating my Mom's multivitamins...I am back...for the most part.

Hung out with my cousin Ellen who is here from nor cal. I've got a lot of family in nor cal. Dorked out on the laptoppies all morning with my brother watching You Tube videos and when he left for work, Ellen and I got some sushi for lunch.

Ellen's staying at my Grandma's while she's here. Grandma is...an interesting character. Definitely this matriarch figure that has played an important role in all her grandchildren's lives. She's sharp, derisive, and hilarious. Always at our house parties, she'll be sitting in a really comfortable chair while my Mom or someone goes to fix her plate of food and everyone who enters the party goes to greet her first before doing anything else. And, according to Kuya, she shit-talks when she plays mah-jong.

Ellen and I hung out at G-ma's and rented some movies our theme being "school" since Ellen's a grade-school teacher and so was G-ma. Got Charlie Bartlett and Rocket Science. Around 1 am, Kuya arriving from his shift came by and we all went to Norm's for late-night grub. That just feels so So Cal to me. I remember going to Denny's or some other late night diner after prom and going to shows.

I'm starting to feel normal again, and maybe less special and unique. When in Paris, I labeled myself as "American in Paris" or maybe "study abroad student". And that was cool, you know, people found that interesting, especially when meeting American tourists. There's always this sense of superiority when walking amongst American tourists or any tourists in Paris. I've never been one to feel superior to anyone until Paris. I especially felt super cool and snob when I'd walk past them with great purpose while they stare at their maps trying to figure out the metro system. Ordering food at St. Michel and asking for sauce samurai while they just pointed at the white stuff. That felt good, I must confess. Being an American, and yet having that "in" in a crazy, sometimes harsh city. But maybe any local gets that feeling when surrounded with tourists.

I'm really going to miss that.

And now I'm just a regular student, a 5th year senior at SFSU. That window in which I can say "I just got back from Paris for a year" is shrinking. At least some people here in so cal find me being a student up north a little exotic, case in point the boys at Apple. But I need to start feeling good about myself again, without that superiority of living abroad.