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 :)