Holiday Updates

My sleep schedule is so out of whack :/ From the moment I left school, I started staying up too late. Way too late. This, in combination with my lack of sleep during finals week, led to a few extremely latelate nights followed by a few extremely latelate mornings... which furthur fueled my terrible sleep schedule. In conclusion, I am living a (fun but hopefully short lived?) nocturnal lifestyle. Highlights include:

Late night pizza at Italian Express in Westwood
A looong day at Disneyland
Helping my Dad move into his new apartment
A trip back to LA
Emilie time!
Recording for Arthur's latest game: Merry Gear Solid 2
Recording for Long Live the Duke
Electronics and furniture shopping!
Bang!, RocknRolla, and plenty of laughs at Ryan and Dan's
Caroling Party!! followed by LOTS of conversation...
Holiday Party!! followed by even GREATER amounts of conversation...
Late night Del with old friends! :D
Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day Dinner
Various hangs, brunches, and lunches
An overload of Desperate Housewives watching...
And a bit of gift exchanging thrown in for good measure :)

No pictures, though. I'm waiting for my new camera. It's been 7 months... but I'm told I will get it soon. (!)
My (5yearold) iPod also went kaput. Like, completely kaput with no possibility of quick fixing it. So... a new iPod is coming my way Tuesday! Good times :)

Saturday Night

Can I say that I REALLY dislike the USC tram system? I have NEVER had a good experience. Saturday, the boy and I decided to take the USC provided LA Live bus to get to the LA Auto Show because the bus is free, we wanted to save the $14 we would've spent on parking, we had the time, and hell, it's good for the environment. NEVER AGAIN. We waited THIRTY minutes for this bus trying to get there, AND thirty minutes trying to get back. That's an hour of waiting, not including the 15 minute walk to the bus stop (which, honestly, wasn't THAT terrible. I like being outside, and walking is progress, not just waiting. But it adds another 30 minutes to our 1.5 hour total travel time... for something that is ten minutes away by car...). Did I mention that I HATE waiting? It's a waste of my time. Plus, it was raining. Normally I wouldn't mind rain - it's atmospheric, romantic, and I enjoy it (since we don't get it very often here). But I don't enjoy waiting in it for an hour, at night when it's cold, when I'm trying to not get sick before recording this week.

Next time I'm driving :(

Anyway. Enough ranting. The Auto Show was fun, and Versailles was exceptionally delicious, so all in all it was a good night.

The Worst Is Over

I think. I finished my second to last final this morning, and it was supremely terrible. On the plus side, I now have only one more final left! First, though, is the weekend. I anticipate cleaning, some recording prep for Tuesday, and lot's of HapaSC planning. I haven't done a recording in a while, so I'm excited :) As for now, I think I'm going to enjoy this rainy day and read some more of Bluebeard while relaxing on my comfy couch, glancing up occasionally at a beautifully cloudy downtown LA...

P.S.
I was going to put up a picture of downtown in the rain from my window... but I decided I like this better. Same window, no rain. Just contrast :D

The Final Countdown

What's today? Tuesday? In one week I will be done with finals. I will also be doing a recording at Chapman for a friend's scoring project. I will ALSO be cleaning my apartment, packing, and saying a few farewells before I skedaddle down to Irvine.

As for now, I will eat a grapefruit and (hopefully) study like crazy for finals. I don't have high hopes for my grades this semester. I'm going to be pretty sad when my GPA drops. But hey, I'm on the home stretch and the things I will remember about first semester senior year will hopefully NOT be the fact that I stumbled through most all of my classes, but all the good times I had, including HapaSC's end-of-semester Formal Dinner. That's the hope, at least.

In other news, I watched the Korean drama Oldboy the other night. Good movie! Very interesting. Very, "wait, whaaaaaat?". Recommended. Apparently they're making an American remake of it starring Will Smith. If it weren't for Will Smith, I wouldn't even mention the remake because remakes are usually butchered versions of the original movie starring "popular" (but generally less-than-talented) celebrities *cough*Shall We Dance?*cough*. The Korean version of Oldboy was REALLY well done (especially in the cinematography department)... but who knows. I'll watch the remake, I suppose, but for anyone who hasn't already seen it, I'd suggest watching the original first.

Pondering Thoughts

Classes are over. I still have a project to do, a paper to write, and four finals to study for. It would be less of an issue if I were more prepared for all of the above. In any case, a week and three days from now I will be done with it all, regardless of the quality I put forth.

I sang in a recital today. I miss singing. I forget how much I enjoy singing, sometimes. I feel like I let a lot of things get in the way of my singing these past few years... as well as in the way of a lot of other important, unmentioned things. And now I'm nearing the end and I just want to get out. I have a feeling that a successful college career doesn't end like this, but since I don't have any experience otherwise, maybe it does.

No. No it doesn't.

I took my Dad to Disneyland for his birthday. It was fun. More pictures are below.

P.S.
Lately I've been updating my Tumblr more than I've been updating this. Just saying.

I Love Home

Driving south on the 405 improves my disposition much more than it should. Not that driving north on the 405 makes me unhappy, per se, but driving south - boy what a wonderful feeling.

This Thanksgiving weekend was a much needed break from the stress and frustration of not-home. It was spent in the company of family and much-missed friends. Lots of delicious food was devoured, and lots of conversation and laughter ensued. Activities included: Bang!, late night Del Taco, Mario Kart, reuniting with Mr. Snow, Thanksgiving dinner, meeting a new cousin, watching Disneyland fireworks from my Uncle's living room, midnight L4D, handball, pool/Taboo/Catchphrase, Claim Jumper, game watching, phone calling, Snatch watching, Laguna visiting, chai drinking, random hanging out, and plenty of relaxation.

Right now I'm fiddling around with myheritage, curious to see how much of my family tree I actually know. I know a decent amount, but not very much. I think I'm going to start researching a bit, though!

I Have Nice Friends

After hearing about my stressful week, Anhkhoa decided to turn coffee/lunch into ABRA DAY! And it was really fun! We went to Porto's in which I was instructed to eat a (DELICIOUS) sandwich and try (10?!) pastries. We also explored Anhkhoa's hometown NoHo (which, to my surprise, is actually called NoHo haha). And then we took the long way back to the freeway via Mulholland Drive complete with a quick pit stop to check out an AWESOME view. All of this was a surprise to me. I'm still smiling :)

Still Procrastinating

I need to finish writing a paper today. Instead, I've been paying bills, registering and writing postcards, and staring at my two dozen flowers (roses and tiger lilys!) for hours on end.

I also need to make mini cheesecakes, but that shouldn't be too much of a chore.

On the plus side, pumpkin ice cream is super tasty and I appreciate the amazing effort that was made to get it :)

Changes

This was kind of a stressful week. I was sick for the first half of it, and the day I started feeling better I was hit with the worst cramps ever. I'm sorry, TMI, but it's true. Ow.

Anyway, the terrifying thought of adding more stress to my already stressful week influenced my last minute decision to not fight my speeding ticket. Even though I wasn't speeding and yadda yadda yadda. I regret this a little bit, because I think people should do what they think is right. In this case, the right thing to do would've been fight my ticket BUT the right thing happened to be the most stressful/time consuming thing and therefore I went with the arguably wrong but easy thing and just paid the ticket, and paid for driving school. And now I'm poor and a bit regretful.

I tried Wurstkuche with Jimmy and I liked it more than I thought it would. I don't think it's as fabulous as some Yelpers proclaim it to be, and I don't think it's as hipster as others complain it to be. It was just a restaurant with a nice vibe that serves TASTY German beer. Why do I like it? Because I love love love beer. Mmmmm.

Thursday was way too f'ing long (back to back meeting, Project ReMiX and LSA event...) but it ended really fun. And then I was sick again (this time of my own doing...) and after crashing at Yvette's place I felt dehydrated and tired for the entirety of Friday. Which was kind of a bummer, because Friday was the APASA Winter Formal... but eh the dance itself wasn't that great. Beforehand, Hapa got vegan Ethiopian food as a group... and the service was some of the slowest I've ever experienced, although the food was pretty tasty. Although they didn't give me what I ordered? But whatever.

While at the dance, I ditched for a little while and took a short walk (finally! Me time!) and ended up having a nice (?) conversation with some guy who was working security that night haha. And then I headed over with friends to Devin's place where the Pinot-ish party was taking place... but by the time we got there the keg was empty. And then DPS came. But I'm still glad I stopped by because I got to see a lot of my friends that I hardly ever get to see!

And then it was a mellower repeat of Thursday night.

And now it's Saturday? And one year. And how things change.

One More Time

I've done it again. I've gone and created another "me" site without a drop of rhyme or reason. Actually, that's a lie. The story behind this one is that I wanted to post a song here... but was having a really hard time figuring out a simple way to do it with blogger. There might not be a simple way. Anyway, word on the street is that tumblr is simple and lo and behold, it is. So I've created a tumblr (that I have yet to edit to my liking) where I can post things that I like. Not just things that I've been doing, which is what this blog has turned into.

Originally (and you can check my first post on mynameisabra if you doubt me), this was supposed to be a blog about the "many things that interest me, as well as the little things that make me smile." I also noted that I'd be writing about what I find fun and interesting in my own life... but the focus was supposed to be the former, not the latter. myonesmile was a failed attempt to focus on that again... and so now I'm going to try and split it up a bit. This tumblr that I've made will be updated, hopefully on a regular (daily??) basis, with things that I like. Period. Nothing fancy. No words. (I tend to get carried away with words). Just THINGS.

One day I'll start writing about the little things that make me smile again... but as for now, this blog will remain things that I've been doing (and a few little things that make me smile), and that tumblr will be things that I like. Because apparently/recently, the majority of what I do isn't little/doesn't make me smile/whatever.

So It Begins

Wow, so I had just finished typing up my post when my computer shut off for no reason (low battery without warning? I don't know). Anyway. What I had written went something like this:

I'm sick :(

Even though I've been trying really hard to take good care of myself, I woke up sick sick sick on Sunday. It's given the boy an excuse to show off his boyfriend skills, though. For example, yesterday (before he knew I was sick sick sick), he called to see if I wanted to meet him for lunch. As soon as he found out I was sick, however, the offer to bring me lunch was on the table. He then used the last of his cash (unbeknownst to me) to get me a Subway sandwich (meatball) and some Subway soup (chicken noodle) - both surprisingly good. The catch is, he didn't get anything for himself O.o He just brought everything by the apartment, and soon went to work on a big project. Aww, how sweet :)

Before I was sick, I had a really fun Saturday: Akiko and Trevor came up to hang out! At one point we swung by the Grove (they had never been!). We did a lot of wandering, and a tiny bit of window shopping, but most of our visit was at the Farmer's Market in which we browsed all our dinner options before finally settling on jambalaya (and a really delicious lula plate for Trevor).

I really like the Farmer's Market. It has a nice vibe, and while not all the food is the bees knees (I think the Brazillian place is overrated... in a "I'm not waiting in line for 30 minutes to get this BBQ" kind of way), there are some pretty delicious places. The crepe place is fantastic, for example. Anyway, many conversations and Chinese car crash tests later, I was completely exhausted but quite satisfied with my day.

Has anyone else noticed that the Christmas season began particularly early this year? Like, before Halloween was over in some stores? The Grove had most (if not all) their beautiful Christmas decorations up already... and on the patio of the Coffee Bean they were subtly playing Christmas music the other day. Most years I feel bad skipping over Thanksgiving, but this year the early anticipation comes as a relief. I'm really excited for the holidays (and the end of this semester)! :D

Two Highlights

Besides an overload of class, meetings, rehearsals, and a midterm... this week was quite fun. Highlights include Thursday, in which I made cupcakes for our General Meeting (in celebration of our members' birthdays that fall in November). Afterwards, I was planning on working on my recording project BUT I decided to grab some free Coffee Bean holiday lattes with friends, first. Which resulted in a 3+ hour long conversation. Followed by Indian food at Manas, in which we were their last customers and the second we walked out the door they shut the lights off in the restaurant haha. Followed by karaoke at Ding Dong Dang, which was a lot of fun, but man I was exhausted by the end of it.

Ding Dong Dang deserves some back story. See, Ding Dong Dang is about five minutes away from school, and has been there for at least as long as I'VE been living here. It was something we always laughed at when we drove by, because Ding Dong Dang was situated RIGHT next to a shop called "Pornomania." It was pretty classic. Well, Pornomania has since closed... but Ding Dong Dang is still there. I'm really glad to have gone at least once during my stay here!

Anyway. That was all Thursday. Friday was also awesome: the highlight was seeing Ann! She was in Century City on business (visiting from San Francisco). After I picked her up from her hotel, we grabbed a snack and caught up before meeting her parents at this cute little Italian restaurant in Venice. Ann had a connection to the restaurant (the owners were friends of a friend, or something), so our meal was comped, which was really nice! Had some tasty bruschetta with proscuitto and mozarella, and we tried two of their soups. Everyone got specials, except for me; I got gnocchi in a pesto sauce. Tasty, but SUPER filling. Which ultimately meant that everyone cleaned their plates, and I had an entire meal to take home, basically. And the toothpick incident, in which everyone grabbed a toothpick, but I politely declined. I was definitely the odd one out! But it was great to see Ann and her family. They're such fabulous people :)

Played a bit of L4D with the boy... and now we're going to watch another episode of SVU. But then it's sleepy time, because I know tomorrow's going to be a fun day as well!

Studying-Ish

San Clemente, CA. I want summer to get here faster.
So I'm at Emilie's at the moment, where I'm supposed to be studying for my midterm which is on Wednesday. Which I really need to study for, since I've missed a couple of classes. And because I don't think I'm doing that well in the class. Even though I think the topic (abnormal psychology) is fascinating, and I actually know the material pretty well? I'm just failing at thoroughly preparing myself for these exams.

It's one of those classes where I know the information well enough to talk about the topics in a broad sense (and thus am not motivated to study hard for the midterms), but not well enough to answer 100 very specific (albeit multiple choice) questions... and thus don't do incredibly well on the midterms :/ I get half of them right away, and the other half I get down to two possibilities, and apparently I suck at choosing between the two because I'm just not doing that well. Enough on that, though.

I had a delicious homemade meal tonight. It was a classy fish sandwich: seasoned red snapper with sauteed mushrooms and green onions topped with tomatoes and healthy mayo on a perfectly toasted baguette. SO tasty! Which makes today a good day :)

Weekend Roundup

Uploaded a ton of pictures to Facebook today. Came across this one of a cute little Caterpillar Roll from a Little Tokyo visit a few weeks back.

Shades of Love went pretty well. I've decided that the best way to describe it is small, but successful. Our moderator and panelists were great; a lot of interesting discussion occurred. Speed Dating worked out well, too, and we miraculously ended up with an even number of ladies and men participating! Fun stuff.

The highlight of Saturday was a kick back at Emilie's. Riley was visiting her from Arizona, and as tradition when I, or Emilie, or whoever is visiting someone... a party is thrown so friends can gaze in wonder and meet the visiting person. And it was no different for Riley! I brought lemon bars and some Kona Longboard. Lemon bars were a hit (yay!) and the Kona was mainly enjoyed by RC and me. Some epic Catch Phrase ensued. For hours O.o Which reminds me: I really need to get that game - it's one of my favorites, but it and Taboo are both pretty expensive and I just have never gotten around to it since I know people who own it.

Today was the relaxing, clean-up day of the weekend. I can't say I'm the neatest person in the world, but I'm not the messiest and I actually HATE living in mess. It stresses me out. So while it's hard to clean during the middle of the week, I try to make it a point to clean one day on the weekend.

And then I had dinner at La Barca because we had a coupon. Tasty stuff! Better than I remembered it to be, and super (over-)filling.

Also this weekend I played through the new L4D demo. It's fun. Can't really make an opinion on it yet... but I think I'll enjoy the game at the very least. Might not obsess over this one, though, which isn't a bad thing, really :P

Watched the most disturbing SVU episode last night. Second to last episode of the second season, I think, if you're interested. Really. Really. Disturbing. Not even horribly sad. Just disturbing. Ugh.

But anyway. Four weeks of school left! I'm so excited... :D

A Fuzzy Week

Nearly a week has gone by. What have I been doing? I can't seem to recall...

I do remember last Sunday though. The boy took me to Salo-Salo for dinner in Glendale... and then surprised me by extending the date, eventually including a movie at a nearby theatre. Law Abiding Citizen, to be exact. It was pretty interesting. Not as good as the previews suggested it might be. There were some plot issues and I'm just not a fan of torture/gore scenes... but beyond that, it was entertaining.

I also roasted pumpkin seeds at some point. Those actually came out really good! Nice and buttery toasty :)

Checked out Maitreya for Marissa's birthday. They have a pretty good Happy Hour menu... which the car I was in missed by 1 minute. Literally. (Darn LA traffic). Shared some Carbonara, which was good. Other dishes looked good as well and I liked the atmosphere, at least for dinner. Either way, I'm planning on going back. Plus, there's a multitude of dessert places to choose from in the area. (Of course, even with the many options, the boy and I grabbed another Pumpkin Pie Shake from Jack in the Box, haha).

Tonight is HapaSC presents: Shades of Love. It's an Interracial Dating Forum (something we've done in the past, but not last year), followed by Speed Dating (something new for us). It should be interesting! We've got four diverse, guest panelists with incredibly different backgrounds, and the Assistant Director of APASS at USC is moderating for us. I have to introduce and close the forum... and will have to, at some point today, sit down and think about what I plan to say. Esther and I are also running the Speed Dating session. I'm so curious to see how that will turn out...

I keep telling myself I should update this more often. Since my memory seems to be failing me, maybe it's time I actually listen to myself!

Happy HallowEEEeen

Happy (Day-After) Halloween! Hope everyone else is having a good weekend :) Halloween started on Thursday for me... although it didn't go exactly as planned. I was supposed to go to the Hapa/Troy Phi Halloween party, but because I (and RC, since he came with) was the designated Hapa rep for getting drinks, I didn't start getting ready until 10 something - AFTER the party started. Which is not a big deal, normally (I'm all about the fashionably late entrances), except JUST when RC and I were about to head over, I started getting calls/texts that the party had been shut down. Instead of going to the relocated party (I've never been to a relocated party that's lived up to the original), we decided to mess around with our costumes. We were dressed up as "Scene Kids" (HAHA) so we began our fooling around by taking "Myspace Pictures" :P Not putting any up here... but a few will probably go up on Facebook. And then we decided that we looked more like Rockstars so the night digressed in that direction, hehe :)

We spontaneously switched our Friday/Saturday plans, and ended up carving pumpkins and watching The Nightmare Before Christmas on Friday instead of Saturday. Which was an adventure on it's own, simply because we do things last minute sometimes and had some time trying to find pumpkins to carve!

And on SATURDAY, we drove out to Six Flags for some good ole coaster fun... plus Fright Fest! Which was actually a lot of fun. We went through all the mazes (only 6), and ironically our favorite was the first one we went through: Jokesters Hideout. And of course we went on one of my most favoritest thrill rides of all time... Colossus BACKWARDS!!! Such a trip. Scares the shit out of me every time hahaha.

We got back really late (we kept indulging in Jack in the Box's Pumpkin Shake)... but it was definitely worth it. And today is promising to be a day of relaxation, which to me, is a fantastic way to round out a busy weekend. In addition to the time change (yay for one more hour!), the boy is taking me out to dinner tonight. I'm looking forward to it! :)

A Blustery Day

"A Very Blustery Day" by Peter and Harrison Ellenshaw
Today was soooo windy! It was such a pleasant surprise :) It was also a good day. I received some unexpected, happy news from my advisor at my appointment this morning... knew most everything on my midterm... had a fantastic lesson... and enjoyed couple-y time with the boy. I even had enough time to sit and watch some squirrels playing in the grass! I love good days!

Study Break

This was a Regina weekend, most definitely. Lunch at The Counter, the Three Apples exhibition at Royal/T, pumpkin ice cream with graham cracker crust at Cold Stones, exploration and dinner in Little Tokyo, and Disneyland were highlights. It was awesome seeing her after nearly a decade, and cool to meet her boyfriend and friends as well.

Today I stopped by the "RACE: Are We So Different?" exhibit at the Science Center for a MASC/HapaSC event, which was pretty interesting. Since then I've been preparing for other upcoming HapaSC events and studying for my three midterms, sort of.

The following are select pictures from the past few days, namely Three Apples and Disneyland. The topmost picture is of a small painting Regina made me of my childhood dog, Skippy. I've always liked Regina's style, and I LOVE this! Regina is a talented artist/illustrator - check out her deviantART page for more of her work.

Fiddling Around

Uploaded some pictures to Facebook today. While waiting for the upload to finish, I started fiddling around with the image sizes on my blog. I wanted them to be big enough to function without having to be linked to the larger picture... but I ran into issues with image quality because my camera is, well, not that great. An opinion or two regarding the changes would be much appreciated!

Thought I had some pictures from when the boy and I ventured to SinBala... but apparently not? So I picked out a few oldies but goodies instead. Emilie is in New York at the moment for the CMJ Music and Film Festival. I miss her!

Regina is in town, which means a busy weekend is approaching. Plus a Hapa event on Sunday, and three midterms next week. Boo! I'm excited for Disneyland though.

One other thing I'd like to mention before I watch some South Park (and then return to/start studying), is that today I received a letter from my Grandma written on a beautiful, textured card. It features a watercolor painting of a child and a dog at the beach. I love the beach. I love dogs. I love texture. I love this card. :)

While Relaxing...

Busy week. Again. What's new.

Midterm, General Meeting, Project ReMiX.
A last minute recital I was supposed to sing in but missed as a result of miscommunication.
Homemade Chocolate Kahlua Cake as a result of procrastination.
Two projects due.
Dinner and (TASTY) shaved ice at SinBala.
A bit of sleep-depriving ultra meh.
Good conversation with the roommates.
A few days of much appreciated rain, which resulted in plenty of bruises...
Missed class due to a power outage and a reset alarm clock.
Prep and presentation of the HAPArty, which was a lot of fun but tiringgg.

Today I had a tasty lunch with Jimmy at The Counter. This time I created a chicken sandwich. I'm thinking I'll go back to veggie burger next time, though.

Soon I will be getting dinner with my mom.

Later it's Thomas' birthday party.

Tomorrow I'm getting breakfast with my dad.

Then it's A Very Hapa Halloween, in which I'm looking forward to pumpkin decorating, Coraline watching, and treat eating.

And then it might be a trip to Ikea. Or more likely, homework. And sleep. Hopefully.

Which is why I'm extremely grateful to be home in Irvine at the moment, relaxing on my bed, enjoying the slight breeze of the ceiling fan, and doing next to nothing. The only thing better than this would be a nap - I'm pretty tired.

Only a few more weekends and then it's Winter Break. And then it's Spring Semester. And then it's Graduation! This is all very fun, but boy is it exhausting. Can't wait to regulate my life, have a consistant job, and allot myself some more ME time!

The Day Improved

So I got the package thing sorted out and am in a decidedly better mood because of it. Mainly because I received TWO packages today (I was only expecting one) and now have my new phone because of it! And this thing is TINY. Having to get used to such a small touch screen qwerty is a challenge, but hey I'm up for it. It's been fun exploring all the little features, and so far it's surprisingly nice. Meaning, everything works. Including the 2g mini SD card that came with it as a bonus. Hooray!

Twas another fun weekend. Highlights include lunch with a good friend, watching Bat Boy (a weird musical but still one of my favorites), Game Night, and a tasty Sunday. Had a great time at Game Night. People brought so much good food, and my Spinach Artichoke Dip AND my Ooey Gooey Butter Bars were a hit! It's always nice when people devour the dishes you make :) Clean up was a bit more involving than I expected... but I had help so it was OK.

Planned on going to SinBala for some Taiwanese food and what is apparently the best Taiwanese styled Shaved Ice in the area... but they only take cash and I (and the boy) am(/are) PLUM OUT OF CASH. And I don't have an ATM card (and really, never did). It's a long story. Anyway, the boy and I ended up in Alhambra at Cofftea, the first boba place I could find that accepted credit cards. Tasty boba, tasty food, but not cheap and not all that filling for two people. Soooo we sauntered over to Tea Station for some Sweet Butter Toast. My favorite part of the evening was still the meal, though. A close second was driving around the city looking to see what other neat places existed that we could check out in the future. It reminded me of Orange County a bit. Such is suburbia, I suppose.

I used to drive a lot when I didn't live in LA, and I loved it. It was one of the relaxing "me" things I would do. Driving down PCH at night... so beautiful, so relaxing, so... bah I miss it. Anyway. Driving in the city sucks, because it's the opposite of relaxing. Which isn't a surprise, seeing as it's filled with traffic, angry people, poorly paved roads, and badly designed intersections. Driving at 2 in the morning on the freeways is OK... but it isn't beautiful like driving along the coast or through the canyons. Makes me miss the home county quite a lot.

Anyway. I'm just up because I've been fiddling with my phone. Which is a bad reason to be up, especially since I have a midterm this week!

Stupid Package Service

Aadfhgpaioshdg. I'm not very happy at the package service here at my apartment building. Why? Because they keep changing the hours in which you are allowed to pick up packages. And if you're unable to pick up packages during their designated hours (which keep changing)... you will be charged $5 to pick them up during office hours (9am-5pm) and $20 to pick them up during non-office hours. Oh except you can't pick up packages ever on weekends and holidays. And the Thursday package pickup hours are drastically different than the Monday-Wednesday and Friday package pickup hours? And... the Monday-Wednesday and Friday package pickup hours got recently changed from AM to PM and NOBODY BOTHERED TO TELL ME. Rather, all that was put up was a couple of black and white, extremely wordy signs filled with bad grammar and too many instructions. So the change from AM to PM went completely past me. Especially since the Thursday package pickup hours remained in the AM.

And I'm now really angry because I'm deathly afraid that they're going to send my package back, because it's been a week, because I have been unable to pick up the package during what I supposedly thought were the package hours (8-10AM) for five days plus a weekend.

And I'm also really worried that my second package (that I am so desperately waiting for) arrived and left without my knowledge because the office SOMETIMES informs us that we have a package waiting (by leaving a 1 inch by 2 centimeter piece of white paper with small black letters taped onto the FRONT of our mailbox [making it quite easy for it to fall off, or be TAKEN off if someone is in a shitty mood when they come back from school/work/whatever]) and sometimes DOESN'T.

And what do I do if my packages get sent back? One to Northern California and the other to some place in China (or Singapore)? I'm not sure! But I need my shit. :(

A Good Mix of Life and Relaxation

So I successfully managed to NOT get on my computer for Facebook/Gmail/Hotmail for a few days, which is pretty amazing since I use all three frequently for Hapa. Basically, I've had a three day break from Hapa work! (But not Hapa itself).

The major parts of my weekend consisted of...

Hanging out in Westwood
Zankou Chicken (where my chicken kabobs were much greasier than usual? Boo)
Crepes in Long Beach
Drinks at the Bull Bar
Volunteering with Dog (and Cat) Adoption in Culver City
Deliciousness at The Counter
Gelato at Melt
USC beating Cal 30-3
and hosting a joint "belated birthday" party complete with tons of good drinks, good friends,
        good music, and silent movies!

High points include Akiko agreeing with me that 27 Dresses is a shitty movie mainly because everything that happened to Katherine Heigl's character was her own damn fault... realizing that my iPod is working again... playing with dozens of kind, friendly, cute, amazing dogs... finding delicious new places to eat... and partying with friends that I don't get to see as often as I'd like!

Low points include not being able to adopt a dog even though I REALLY want to... and taking that stupid shot Saturday night, which I of course hated. Because I always do. I'll have a beer (or two or three) instead, any day, haha.

Completely unrelated (but related because it's still the weekend) was my lovely lazy day with the boy cleaning up the apartment, streaming various shows on Netflix (namely SVU, CI, and the original Star Trek), playing various Zombie themed games (LOVE Plants vs Zombies), eating various unhealthy foods (such a contrast to the rest of the weekend :/), and cuddling at various times throughout the day.

Good weekend :)

That Magic Moment

Two midterms tomorrow (today), but before I forget the magic of the moment, I wanted to gush about this past weekend. More specifically, the marriage of my childhood best friend.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.


She looked so gorgeous. Beautiful dress, beautiful smile. Everyone was all smiles. It was a smaller wedding, but even still I only knew a few people there (one of which being a fantastic friend from high school that I was SO excited to see!). The boy accompanied me. The reception was in a private room of a nearby Italian restaurant that, it turns out, I've coincidentally eaten at before (back in the day after a theatre competition in high school). The restaurant has a creepy basement (complete with broken arcade games and strange ghoulish statues), but the private room we were in was lovely, quaint, and perfect for the wedding reception.


One of my favorite parts of the whole celebration was the father daughter dance.


A frightening part of the celebration was the bouquet toss. I feel old because some of my friends are starting to settle... but not that old because I personally (and Carol too!) am(/are) clearly not ready to, haha.

Other highlights this weekend include going out to Dave and Busters for some late night drinks with some hilarious friends that I haven't seen in ages (consequently causing me to miss the walk I was supposed to participate in with my mom...), lunch with my dad at the Fish Grill, and lunch with my mom at a Chinese restaurant we used to go to sometimes a few years back (which apparently isn't doing as well as it used to :/) followed by some Mochilato (my mom's first taste!). Sunday night the boy surprised me with a home cooked meal, which definitely was unexpected (and tasty!).

I also got a haircut (after the wedding, so the pictures don't showcase it) and tamed my ever growing hair. While at first I wasn't a fan (straight bangs versus swept bangs...), I have since gotten used to it and quite like it! I've come to realize that I can't judge haircuts straight out of the salon because hairdressers tend to style my hair completely opposite from how I usually do it. Meaning, they actually style it and I don't like how it looks all gunked up. I'm not a fan of wasting time where I don't need to. If my hair looks good as it is, I'm not going to throw in expensive, unnecessary product and spend valuable time straightening it. Or curling it. Or whatever. Not to say I don't EVER do this, but usually the extent of my styling is air drying and a quick brush afterwards. An important event calls for blow drying it with a round brush, sometimes... but recently I haven't bothered. My hair's been good to me lately! Although the point definitely came where I was in dire need of a haircut. Haircut completed, my hair has gone back to being good to me :)


But really, the most important part of the weekend was the wedding. And a beautiful wedding it was :)

Relaxing Interlude

So today was a nice end to a busy week.

Woke up early to get to a 10am meeting. Spent 4 hours in the ceramics lab by myself working on a project (super relaxing). By the time I was starting to get lonely, my RC came to keep me company before we went to get a quick lunch. And then it was a rush to grab a few things before heading off to APASA's Tournament of Champions (which consisted of a Tug-of-War, Relay Race complete with inflatable obstacle course, and Trivia Game featuring marshmallow guns). Not only was the Tourney of Champs a lot of fun (I cheered like crazy during the Tug-of-War and dashed/tumbled through the inflatable obstacle course helping my Relay team win BOTH times we competed in that event), but HapaSC finished in SECOND PLACE!!! Ahh! In a competition among clubs 2 and 3 times our size. :D And THEN it was our Officer Retreat to incorporate our new officers, in which I led a short discussion about responsibilities, expectations, and goals, mainly... followed by absolutely delicious Korean dessert and tea at Hwa Sun Ji which was, thankfully, SUPER relaxing.


We all took our shoes off and sat on pillows while sipping expensive (but surprisingly worth it, even from a cheapskate like me) teas and eating Korean style shaved ice with green tea ice cream, red beans, mochi, watermelon, honey dew, condensed milk, and a bit of mochi powder. I'm used to the Taiwanese version of shaved ice, which I may have mentioned before. It differs mostly in the ingredients that are put on top of the shaved ice. For Taiwanese style, you get to choose what you put in, so when I order it I generally get it with rice balls, red beans, almond jello, and condensed milk. The Korean version (at least at the place we went to) didn't have a choice in toppings, but it was TASTY nonetheless, and similar enough that I became a happy Abra because of it :) The boy and I also shared something called "Lovers Tea" (HAHA) which is supposed to enhance chemistry between two people? Or work like an aphrodisiac? The warning on the menu said that it was for couples or soon to be couples ONLY, so we were the only two who could really try it at the time, haha. It was actually quite tasty. I think the best description of it's taste would be warm cranberry juice with floral accents. It went really well with the shaved ice!

It's going to be a busy weekend to finish off a busy week, so I'm glad I had a good Friday to break the two up a bit. I'm equally glad that part of my good Friday included a fantastic, relaxing night out with my fellow Hapa officers to calm things down a bit :)

Now I've showered, removed some old nailpolish, and prepped for a night of Law and Order: SVU with the boy. It's a good ending to a good day :)