It's been a long while since I've updated, not that anyone cares, but I'm not about to abandon Xanga-ship just yet. I'm currently in the main branch of the Berkeley Public Library, located on Shattuck Avenue. Normally I frequent the Claremont Branch off College which is in the nicer part of town and closer to my house, but I always found that library unfortunately small and, save for an exceptionally pristine bathroom, mysteriously smelly. Well, not so mysterious I suppose, given that homeless people in Berkeley see the libraries as some sort of sanctuary. They sit on the steps, muttering to themselves, unable to leave their bicycles upon which they have tethered newspapers and women's clothing and other junk items. The ones without bicycles but with duffel bags and canvas bags and plastic bags make it inside and use the computer (apparently even the homeless use email; I once smelled then saw a man dressed in rags using gmail, and it was not yet halloween) or just sit on the chairs and sleep, or read the newspaper. It's important for bums to keep up with current events, just in case someone asks their opinion on Obama's latest speech or the happenings in the middle east.

Anyway, I had stopped going to the public library for a while, preferring instead to spend a ton of money on used books at Moe's (which, if sales worked this way, I should probably own by now) or to check out books I never read from the labyrinthine University Main Stacks. Libraries ought to be built to a human scale, and Berkeley apparently did not get the memo when they constructed the Main Stacks, which, in its sprawling layout and underground location supported by cold, cement beams and giant metal shelves with those creepy cranks that scream of late-night murder mysteries, reminds me of Resident Evil. Instead of flesh-eating zombies I am surrounded by zombies (students cramming for finals) and the words of dead writers who without even trying or wanting to, will overshadow anything I ever attempt to write. Last week however, my university library privileges were revoked because I withdrew from school (long story short: I have ditched art history and will return in the spring as an english major; I am happy...but will now be the oldest undergraduate Asian female on campus) and was forced to look elsewhere to get my literary fix. So it was back to the public library.

I walked down to Shattuck today to return some drugs (to CVS) and on a whim, decided to enter the massive, art-deco style Berkeley Public Library Main Branch. Walking through the glass doors, I prepared myself for the dreadful odor of eau de homeless - this was afterall, the main branch, located bravely on the street where most of the homeless gather because it's technically "downtown" and close to the BART station as well. Instead, I was met with the familiar smell of books. The library was clean and bright and a young security guard sat at a wooden podium at the entrance, putting me immediately at ease (because young security guards sans guns are so effective at stopping major crimes from occurring in Public Libraries). The patrons are a far cry from the (mostly white and asian) demographics I am used to at home, but sure, I'll share my reading space with (more than a few) blacks, even that weird obese guy to my right who has way too much going on: portable dvd player, laptop, headset, magazines, and...a set of bongo drums. He is also humming softly to himself while tapping his right leg. Only in Berkeley.

I haven't made my way completely through the shelves, but I've seen, on my brief walk-through (for every seasoned user of public libraries always, always begins with a walk-through) an ample magazine selection, a large Chinese books collection, neatly labeled shelves of Fiction, Non-Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction and small carousels of paperbacks that do not look as though they have gone through the paper shredder. I am shallow (liking to read does not necessarily indicate otherwise) and refuse to read ugly books just as I refuse to date fat, ugly men (like the bongo player next to me who is surreptitiously casting sly glances in my direction - I hope he is reading this). That, I suppose, is my cue. It is browsing time. Already I can tell that it'll have more than I need to tide me over until the next semester, when the University decides to let me back into its system.

I drank too much tea last night, had a good cry during "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," and then settled into bed, expecting to get a much-needed full-night's rest. No such luck - I ended up staying awake until three-thirty, waffling between reading criticisms of Edward Hopper and Vanity Fair (the magazine). So this morning, I woke up as per usual, at eight am, with my eyes feeling as though someone had poured salt upon them. Needless to say, I was not in the best of moods, but forced myself through the morning motions with the help of a hot shower and hearty breakfast: oatmeal slow-cooked with ripe bananas then topped with dried cranberries, chopped nuts, and cinnamon.

The shower helped for about ten minutes and the oatmeal for about five. My body becomes all sorts of wonky if I don't put it to rest for at least seven and a half hours (it used to be eight, until I began this crazy college lifestyle) and if I do the math...subtract three thirty am from eight am equals...four and a half hours does not seven and a half make. What an unnecessarily long sentence. Needless to say, the plans I had scripted the night before, meant to be enacted today, were put off until I had eaten lunch. I sat at my desk for a full fifteen minutes, staring blankly at the to-do list before me: Print-out more Hopper articles in Moffit; Check out books on Hopper, Nabokov; Read for Histart 100; Complete Art Practice Assignment, etc, until I finally got up from my chair, changed my pants and decided to make the trek to school.

It is, if you have not stepped outside today (but only if you live in the cooler, upper half of this wonderful Golden State), a most gorgeous fall day: it is slightly chilly but sunny, with a crisp breeze and that smell - do you know it? The dry, fresh smell of fall, when all the humidity has been zapped away from the surface of things, leaving you with dry, unadulterated air particles which enliven your brain because they come directly from the skin of nature. They roll off the reddening leaves and skate over chilled tree bark, hop over the exposed roots (the toes of trees) and down the sidewalk, which has been swept clean by the breeze and right into your nostrils as you emerge from your front door to leave for school.

It is that kind of day. On top of it, the streets are not quiet but gaining momentum in a rowdiness only a Cal vs. USC football game could arouse - the sidewalks closer to campus were crowded with the maroon red (dried Trojan blood, I suppose, speaking as a Bear) jerseys of visitors from the truculent south and the blue and gold sweatshirts of my schoolmates, who despite attending the higher ranked institution, seemed somehow less robust than our opponents.

Thus this was the scene I walked past, and as I drew closer to campus and the football festivities, the fall air began to tremble with the vibrations of loud rap music being blasted from dilapidated frat houses, to intermingle with intermittently noisome and fragrant perfume of young girls and middle-aged women alike, and the intoxicating scent of various barbecues - a tantalizing echo of my more carnivorous days. I walked through these smells in the hollowed, sleep-deprived shell of my body and made eye contact with no one, for I was wearing sunglasses, and became confused: what was I going to school for? Was it not a saturday? Ought I not to have sported a smile on my face?

The doors to Moffit, though not high at all, seemed, in my distorted, sleep-deprived vision, to loom before me as an entrance to a dungeon, into which the studious voluntarily incarcerated themselves. Pressing the elevator button to the basement, where all the computers and the fast, laserjet printers are stored, I sighed heavily, realizing that I would probably be one of at most three people in that basement, printing out articles I did want to read (to impress my professor, if for nothing else), but not today.

The doors slid open (as elevator doors do) and I stepped out into the dull atmosphere of Moffit's underbelly. Here, the scent of fall is nowhere to be found, having been replaced by the strange, electronic odor of computers and wires and the smell of too many students tapping away on too many keys, soaking up radiation and other unseen poisons. I walked down the quiet lonely hallway, a literal cage (no pun intended) filled with books waiting to be shelved to my right, though the grates seemed to enclose me rather than them. As I turned the corner, a familiar sound struck me, and I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Surprise because the sound, familiar though it was, played itself to me on the weekdays, not weekends, I spent in Moffit. It was that aforementioned sound of too many fingers tapping away, feverishly. I entered the computer lab and saw, to my surprise, more than half of the computers occupied. Here were my comrades, the non-football gamers or pre-gamers, the apologetically studious who put school before pleasure (though in my case, one class is very intrinsically tied to pleasure), the... my eyes cleared for a moment and I saw that they were my comrades indeed, in every ethnic sense of the word: Asians all of them, all of us.

What to make of this? I do not know - but a hazy cocktail of recognition (for are we not all here together for one and the same?) and resentment (why are we like this? why computers rather than sunshine? Why homework but not football?) I pushed the thought away and took my place in their midst. The questions are for another time. For now, there is a to-do list to conquer.