I just lost my rain of thought

Most peoples have one date for Valentine’s Day, but I got to share it with these two lovely ladies. Our date consisted of a night out on the town in Westwood Village, where we shared a romantic dinner at Corner Bakery and then caught Definitely, Maybe afterwards, stopping occasionally to take some pictures. We also made a pit stop at the local thrift store on the way to the movie, because I guess no Westwood outing is complete without going to Thank You Mart.

Definitely, Maybe was a lot better than I expected. The storyline sort of keeps you guessing, which is good, because romantic comedies usually have the same predictable story. Of course, you could sort of guess what this happy ending was going to be, but they used a different approach in getting to it. The actors and actresses were pretty good and Abigail Breslin is so cute! I just had trouble with Ryan Reynolds age and appearance. His love story starts in like ‘93 or something while he was in college, which would make him about 37 or so, which is kind of unbelievable, unless he and all the other characters just look super good for their ages. Other than that, it was really funny with a cute plot. Overall, it was a loverly night with my two dates. <3

I’ve been spending this long weekend relaxing and having funs. Friday, I didn’t really do anything. Had pho with the fam. Hung out at home, played with my awesome new dictionary, as sad as that sounds. haha. My cousins just came back from China and they bought me this dictionary that I can’t really understand because it’s made for people in China, not people learning Chinese. haha. It makes me feel like what I’ve learned so far is useless, especially since I can’t even order food, the most important purpose of learning a foreign language. Anyway, it is sort of a mini entertainment system on top of being a dictionary. It’s built like a PDA and you can watch movies and listen to music on it, so it’s pretty awesome.

On Saturday, I went snowboarding until my pass ran out of points around 8pm-ish. I still haven’t gotten my carving down, but I’m like…1/3 of the way there, I feel. My shoulders hurt a lot, because I landed funny when I fell coming off the lift. I found that dismounting is probably the worst part of each run, because I never knew where I was going to end up, not that falling while snowboarding doesn’t suck as well. That pain probably lasts even longer. But the anticipation of possibly falling while getting off the lift is always quite nerve-wracking, especially because I could potentially take down several people at once.

After snowboarding, I ate dumplings from this place I like to go to called Shanghai Noodle near where I live and then I went with my friend to watch Jumper. I can’t say that I thought the movie was super great, but the effects were really awesome. The power is really, really cool and it totally made me wish I had it, but the story itself wasn’t fully developed, which Meeshella and I discussed, and the acting was not the best. I think they are probably making a sequel, so maybe that’s why they decided to show off Hayden Christensen’s character’s gift and maybe later they’ll resolve everything? I was pretty amazed by what he could do with his power but was not totally intrigued by his story. There were some pretty funny parts, though; some intentional, some not. One of the parts that stand out in my mind was this expression that Samuel L. Jackson made, sort of like a “Oooh, you got me. That was a good one.” face, towards the end. I think I would watch the sequel, if there is one, just so I can see where they take it and to be amazed by his powers again.

The rest of my weekend was filled with bumming around and not leaving the house much. I went out for a little on Sunday to accompany my mom and brother on a shopping trip, but that was about it for my weekend at home. When I came back to my apartment, I sat for quite a few hours talking to Katryn about lots of stuff, Heren and Meeshella joining in randomly. I love procrastination talks! Not that I don’t love to converse with my roomies under other circumstances.

Happy Lunar New Year! Hope it was funsies for all who celebrate. My roommates and I rang in the new year with a countdown and by setting up a shrine to ourselves, but I decided it was probably bad luck, since we are neither deities nor dead. haha. So I moved our pyramid of Cuties (some sort of tangerine, I presume) to our telephone stand. It’ll welcome people as they come in to visit. We just did it for fun, but I’m guessing we’re going to get a lot of “You’re so Asian…”s. Yup, even Katlyn. haha.

I got sort of a bad start, since I stupidly did not finish prepping for my oral presentation in Chinese and then I sang too much in choir, if there is such a thing. My voice felt yucks and my presentation was horrible, but it’s all ohhh-va. The singing was super fun as usual, but I don’t think I allowed myself to enjoy it as much as I should’ve, because I kept looking at the clock, worried that I would have nothing prepared for my presentation in time, which I didn’t. I went up there and sort of winged it and it was a mess. My TA gave me looks of dismay and confusion from the side, but I just kept talking, filling up time and space with nonsense. I just get so nervous when I have to talk in Chinese. Actually I get nervous when I have to do anything in front of others, because I have intense performance anxiety (No. Not that kind.). Don’t tell me that I don’t, because it’s pretty apparent when you actually see it happen. And don’t tell me I’ll grow out of it, because it doesn’t just go away after a while. ALSO, don’t tell me it happens to the best of us. I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean and how that would help me. Anyway, it was pretty awesomely bad.

I decided I wanted to go home earlier than I would if I went with my sister, so I tried a new bus route home. It took a little over two hours, which would be about as much time as it would take my mommer to drive there and back. This was a much more pleasant experience than prior ones, because the first bus I went on was clean, spacious and free of creepers. I wasn’t even scared when I started dozing off, though I tried to keep myself awake anyway, because I wanted to see the sights. This bus route was totally different from the ones I’ve taken before and it drove by some cool stuffs. The second bus was kind of grimy looking. The people looked a lot sadder and I felt claustrophobic after a while. At least I got a seat this time, though. I hate standing with all my junk. My gigantor laptop doesn’t feel nice when it’s giving me scoliosis, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I’m a fan of public transportation, because first of all, I don’t have to drive. Second of all, I get to observe people (without veering off the road). Haha. On this trip, I overheard a girl talking about how she doesn’t want to have a baby this year, because if she did, she might go on Welfare, but maybe next year. I also made a note to myself that if I were ever going to have kids, I would not let them become spoiled. Instead, I will raise them poor while Mommy gets to live fancy. What invoked this thought was seeing this little chubby girl. Though cute at first with her sparkly flats and wannabe grown-up look, I realized after a while what a brat she was. If her loud “EXCUSE ME”s as she shoved through a crowd of people near the front weren’t enough, she was also saying things like, “I need the lights off, please!” I wanted to tell her, “Dude, you’re on a bus. Are you expecting some sort of concierge service?” but she probably would’ve tried to order someone to take me out. But yeah, that was my bus adventure.

I came home to a room with floor space and it was marvelous. My sister and I did some intense decluttering last weekend and I was so happy to see it again. My mom said she’s never seen my room so clean and I don’t think I have either. Not since before I moved in when it was empty. I do intend on keeping it this way. I’ve been working on giving up things I don’t need in my life, so hopefully the clutter does not get any worse.

Speaking of decluttering, I decided to make that my resolution for this year. Not just physical things but mental too. It’s going to be hard, but I’m going to devote copious amounts of effort to doing so. I want a clean atmosphere at home, at school, in my mind. I’m not going to let myself down about stupid stuff anymore. I’ve been working these past few weeks on starting over. I finally allowed myself to truly let go of something, of somebody, and it feels awesome. I realized I was only keeping those thoughts around as a cushion to keep myself from worlds of hurt, but it really hinders me more than anything, blaming someone else for my own problems. It doesn’t make me any less of a bitter person though. Still the same ol’ me. I just feel bad when people realize I’m just a grumpy old lady most of the time, especially my roommates. haha. My other resolution is to marry one of my superstar dream hubbies. I think this is the year, peeps.

What better way to kick off this whole starting over process than by watching Amelie? Though a little hyped up for me, I did enjoy it. I like the quirkiness of the characters and the creativity of the film itself. A couple people have said I remind them of Amelie, but I don’t know why. I am not nearly one-one hundredth as creative in strategizing and I don’t receive life changing advice from the old man next door, but that stuff would be nice every once in a while. I feel sort of like Pushing Daisies bit off some of the style of that movie, but whatever, I don’t get sick of stuff I like. I also now know where that stupid travel company stole that gnome idea from but decided to make it far more creepy. The idea was much better in the movie. It should stay that way. I really liked the movie though. My interpretation was that you need to find someone who is on the same page as you, someone with the same kind of quirkiness and such. Someone who is cute, French, and drives a motorbike of some sort. haha. And I guess when you realize who that someone is, your heart glows and you devise all sorts of intricate plans. Man would I love to live in a movie.

Before I get to the pictures, here’s a little update:
I go through many, many cough drops a day. Good thing I got the 80 pack from CVS, which conveniently came with a Chapstick knockoff. Convenient, I say, because I think I recently lost my generic Sav-On one. I lose them so often and they usually resurface somewhere, but I had a gut feeling that this one was lost for good. Why CVS was crazy enough to give away these babies, who knows? The only cough drops I really like are lemon-flavored Ricolas, but those do absolutely nothing for me so I just eat them like candy. I recently discovered some Vicks cough drops that were pretty tasty, but I needed a giant pack to help me cut back on my coughing fits. They hurt my already-in-pain abs something awful. And now I forever have a something awful taste in my mouth. Great trade-off. I also bought a huge pack of ham yesterday. Mmm. I don’t know why I love ham so much. I always have though. I eat it the way people eat string cheese. And by the way, what’s with Whole Foods and their crazy deli meats selection? I just want normal ham.

So here are some pictures from last week from our Dollar Christmas and Selwyn’s birthday celebrations. Some of them lead to sets of photos. Try to guess which.

Hello all! Things have been uneventful around here. It’s nice to relaxi-taxi, but I’m scared I’m going to go insane due to lack of social contact. I went snowboarding again last Friday and it was suh-weeet. The snow was all powdery and awesome, aside from the occasional rock. I don’t know why Mountain High always has rocks. The weather has been a little colder, so I guess the snow they make has been able to keep its form and not become ice. It was freezing when I went and I guess that got me a little sick. That and the diseases floating around work. Yuck. Anyway, I’m getting better at carving, but I still can’t snowboard on my toesies. On my last run, I was working on it and then panicked and while trying to turn back to my heels, I fell. Really hard. On my right cheek. It was one of those falls that just vibrates throughout your whole body and shakes your organs. I had to sit and recollect myself and allow my organs to settle back into place. Aside from that, it was a really fun because I was progressing and felt less sucko. haha. What was somewhat funny were the many ways I eventually fell from coming off the lift. I would usually make it off okay and then at a certain point, luckily not so much in people’s paths, I’d kind of just keel over. There was one time that was pretty great though, because I fell back and somehow ended up sitting on my board and arriving safely out of the way of others. I couldn’t recreate that stance though. Bummer.

I had to get home before 7 so that I could get ready for my grandmama’s birthday dinner. I think she turned 81? Lunar calendar birthdays confuse me. From my knowledge, you get three extra years added to your life. I just don’t quite know when. Dinner was delicious. The appetizer was freaking great. It was like this crab stew or something and there was a huge pot left so I kept going back for more because we are frugal people and do not like to waste great things. The rest of the dishes were pretty good, too, but that soup…yummus. My very preggers cousin did not attend because she was feeling sick, but the rest of my maternal family was there. By the way, my cousin gave birth on January 2nd, I think. She seemed kind of grumpy when I went to see the baby so I don’t know what the name is so for now I shall call it Baby Wong, because I also do not know her husband’s last name, which is pretty sad because I was a bridesmaid at their wedding. Bahaha. Baby Wong is super cute and tiny and pink. haha.

The next day, I went to watch I Am Legend and Juno, both of which were awesome. I Am Legend was nuts. Will Smith is a great actor and he can never do wrong, even when he decided to get jiggy with it. Na na na na na na na. I just think it’s funny that in practically every movie he’s in, he’s gotta show off his muscular physique. Yes, I understand he mostly does action flicks, but I don’t see Harrison Ford walking around shirtless. I haven’t seen Pursuit of Happyness yet, but I’m sure they found a way to include a scene of shirtlessness. You say no, but I think it was probably just too quick for the human eye to catch. The zombies in I Am Legend are so scary and unpredictable. If what happens in that movie happens in real life I’m going to be so scared and will probably be gobbled up right away, after I pee in my pants from being so scared, of course. They have like superhuman abilities for some reason and they shriek with their elongated mouths, which I suppose they use to eat people whole. There were several instances in that movie that made me cry and it wasn’t only because I was feeling emotional that day. Will Smith’s character’s life is so sad.

Juno was freaking great. I laughed. I cried. I was disgusted. I basically expressed all my emotions. All three of them. haha. I guess I have others, but these are the primary ones. I’m no movie critic, so anything I say will do it no justice, but I loved this movie. I love Juno the character, because she is adorable and just awesome and I totally want her burger phone. It is such a cute movie and I wish I had that kind of love story, minus the pregnancy thing. I want someone who thinks the sun shines out of my butt. haha. I just feel like I can relate to Juno a lot (once again, minus the pregnancy). I really like the soundtrack, too. I’ve been listening to it nonstop these past couple days. I don’t really know how to give a summary of the movie, so just look it up or watch the trailer or something. Two thumbs up from me, though, mang.

After that, my days were somewhat dull. I just sleep in and do nothing most of the day. Sometimes I have work, where I also do very little. I have not had much contact with people outside of work, but no one talks to me there. For New Year’s Eve, I sat at home and had some hot chocolate that I got from my SS. My stomach was sort of on fire from the lavender milktea I got earlier with Friendest so that wasn’t too fun. I just waited for midnight to come and watched performances and such on like five different channels before the countdown. I stuck to the traditional one with Dick Clark. It was quite the party. haha. The next morning, my mom woke me up so we could get Shanghainese food at this place we like to go to called Shanghai Noodle. Their dumplings are freaking delicious. I love dumplings, mang. You can ask my roommate. When my mom gave dumplings to my cousin to bring back to school for me, I was elated. And every meal that I had them, I was just so happy, every once in a while exclaiming, “Man, I love dumplings!” Dumplings are my favorite well-balanced food. After eating dumplings, in order to get all my basic food groups covered, I’d only have to walk a couple blocks over to Pinkberry and get my fro yo on.

Anyways, here’s some pics of stuff I’ve talked about previously…

I looked up Boxing Day once and there were several different explanations for it. I guess in days long ago, it was the day poorer people carried boxes to work and received little bonuses from their bosses, which I imagine was always a treat. At least it’s not the fighting type of boxing. I would be afraid to go outside then…in Canada, at least, because it’s not celebrated in the US.

Christmas was typical this year, yet it felt different. I love the holidays, but I don’t really celebrate. I just love the spirit of it all, despite the crowded parking lots (though I found my way around that at the mall. Muahaha) and vicious shoppers. I tend to tune them out and just listen to the Christmas music they play in stores. I didn’t do much Christmas shopping this year, though, so little time was spent doing so, meaning little Christmas music was heard by these ears. Sadness. I did, however, spend more time than necessary at the mall, because of my intense work shifts that went from 9pm to roughly around 7:40am last week. I stayed relatively cheery for at least half of each shift, then after a while I got really cranky because I just wanted to be in my warm, toasty bed, dreaming about Leehom, and not in a poorly lit store, breathing in dust bunnies. I applaud the managers for being able to stay in that store for so many hours on a regular basis, because I would probably consider strangling myself with a sweater if I had to be in the store that long. Anyway, after the shifts, I’d go straight home and sleep until afternoon. I can’t remember what I did after I woke up. I sort of lost track of the days and forgot that Christmas was coming up.

At some point during that week, though, I went to Office Depot and bought an external hard drive of 500 gigs. I’ve been debating since then whether it is better to have a portable or regular, but now I’m trying to convince myself that I don’t need a portable one, because the only reason the portable is appealing is because I have the option of moving it around, but I know I really don’t need to. I have my new flash drive for that. Space beats portableness in the long run anyway.

So on Friday, I went over to Susan’s to have a little baking party. We cut out butter cookies, baked them and then decorated. It seemed to be a contest of who could make the most…interesting cookie. haha. We had some shabu shabu beforehand and it was delicioso. I’m glad I don’t have Susan’s mom, or Susan as a mom for that matter, otherwise I’d be gigantor. They make such good food. Afterwards, Hayley and I headed to Pomona to visit Jayder and others because he was throwing a little party. Rather than being party folk, we plopped down on the couch. Hayley fell asleep first and then I dozed off, only to be rudely awakened by a clap in my face from Grant moments later. We played his little voodoo card game once again and it was scary because my results were about the same as last time I did it. Eep.

Saturday was the Freundinnen gift exchange. I hadn’t really had time to finish my shopping, so I had to strategically plan out what I was doing up until I met up with them. Sadly, my homemade gift paled in comparison to everyone else’s, plus it refused to finish in time. I don’t understand why :(! I received an awesome gift from my secret Santa. I can now be a traveling guitar player, not that I can actually play, because I got a guitar strap! :D!! I also got a cute cocoa/tea set thingy and a gift card to Best Buy. I do love them electronics. After the gift opening, we watched Superbad. I finally got to see it (after missing it the night before my last final, sniffs.) and it is so funny. Oh but before the gift exchange and all, we went to Green Street Cafe. Never a complaint about that place. It’s so yummy. It also provided me with lunch the next day. haha. I don’t know why, but I can’t seem to eat as much as I used to. I guess that’s a good thing.

On the day of Christmas I did not do a whole lot. I woke up to get dimsum with the famaree. My cousin told me he was going to go snowboarding today. I had been planning to go too, but it’s his board and I’ve been the only one using it, so I figured I should let him use it for the first time. haha. It was a little weird, because he wanted to borrow all my stuff. First he asked for the pants, then I lent him my mittens, because my pass was attached to them and I didn’t want to cut it off, then my mom insisted that he try on my boots, which didn’t really fit but he was going to wear them anyway (which I do not suggest doing. I warned him repeatedly, but he did not listen.). As I was leaving the house, he asked my mom what kind of eye protection he should have and my mom said that sunglasses were fine, but I had goggles so I brought them down too. I warned him that all my stuff was girl stuff, but he didn’t care. I guess he’s confident enough about his masculinity to wear my gear…or he’s just super cheap. After that, I went to hang with G-face and watch episode after episode of Smallville, because I hadn’t seen any of this season’s eps. Man, they’re so crazy but weird. And that was my Christmas… Exciting huh?

So I woke up around 4:10am, woke up Daryl, and we were off to Frys by 4:30. We got there right before 5, which is when it was opening, and mang was it intense. There was a huge line of cars that pretty much went past where you get off the 60 freeway and I saw people walking towards the store from that area, which is rather far. We could not get into the right turn lane at all, because Black Friday shoppers are vicious beasts, so we had to turn left instead. All the empty parking lots around the area were prepared for this day, because they had security guards posted at every single driveway for like the next gazillion blocks. We turned at the first street in sight and drove around in hopes that it would lead us closer to Frys, only to realize that we had stumbled upon a maze of culs-de-sac (I learned that plural from Gilmore Girls). Finally we just settled and parked and began walking, feeling sad as we were about to trudge all the freaking way around the huge block we had just driven around, even though Frys was in sight and seemed so close. If only we could fly. There was a man we met along the way who had parked kind of close to us. He told us he had been driving around for an hour and a half trying to find a parking spot, approaching Frys from every direction, and this area was the only place he could find parking. He said that he had noticed the river (storm drain channel!) that was running towards Frys and was going to check if the path next to it was open, because it went more directly to Frys than the road we were on. The gate turned out to be wide open, so we walked along the river bank in the super dark and it was rather scary, because every once in a while, I saw an animal run across the path and I couldn’t figure out what they were. I’m just glad they didn’t kill me. We waited until the second opening in the fence and then had to cross some railroad tracks. It was quite the adventure. But nothing could prepare us for what lay ahead.

The guy walking with us had to run ahead to meet someone, but as we approached the crazy line that wrapped around the building and seemed to have no end, we saw him again. We were very lucky because he was near the first corner the line wrapped around and the line was moving really fast and as we waved to him, he told us to cut him. I’m glad there are still nice people that go to these crazy things. I really hope he got what he wanted. Inside the store was so nuts… I had a list prepared of the things I wanted to get that was loosely organized by priority and how fast they’d be gone. Of those things, I pretty much only got what was at the bottom of the list. They were the things I didn’t really need to get there so early for. What was at the very top of my list was an external hard drive, but those were gone way before I got to them. It’s not necessary for me to live or anything, but it’d be nice, because my laptop’s hard drive is only 40 gigs. Shut up. He can hear you snickering. But what’s cool is that I got an 8 gig flash drive to help me out for now. I was kind of mad about that because I swear I heard one of the workers say that after the rebate it would be $3 and Daryl had heard the same. I figured if both of us heard that then it must’ve been right. It turned out the rebate was for $30, but it’s still pretty good for 8 gigs. I also snagged a 2 gig SD memory card, which you have to line up for, but I was sitting somewhere waiting for this guy to get me a vacuum and saw it sitting next to me, alone and abandoned. And yeah, we finally have a vacuum now. Yay!

I barely got anything and probably spent like over four hours in there, most of which was spent lining up to check out, because that line alone zigzagged throughout the whole store. I saw quite a few people from high school there and luckily, again, someone let me cut them in line! We finally got out after 10am and went to Target so Daryl could at least get something that day. haha. After that we tried Circuit City in hopes of an external HD, but that seems to be a very hot item. I then gave up and went home.

I wasted time until around 3 something and then secretly took my sister’s car out to buy groceries to make spaghetti for our annual Freundinnen potluck. It turned out to be not what I hoped, because the sauce was too plain and I bought the wrong sausages, but it was edible. The potluck was fun and we had soooo much food. We had a little family photoshoot afterwards and our namepicking for Secret Santa. Then I had to leave early for work, where my coworker ate my leftover pasta that no one at the potluck seemed to enjoy. haha. It is also where I started becoming delusional because I had so little sleep and I just wanted to go home so badly. And that was my Friday, the longest day ever.

Ello loves. It’s time to thanksgive. There’s a lot to be thankful for this year. First and foremost, I am really, really, really, extremely thankful that my grandma is okay and back to normal. A little less than a month ago, she lost her memory. Talking to her made me want to cry. Whenever we said anything to her, she just kind of repeated what was said to herself. My first thought was that she had Alzheimer’s and I was really mad at my family because they weren’t doing anything about it right away. My aunt was the worst because she kept repeatedly demanding that my grandma say people’s names and of course she didn’t know who anyone was, so it probably stressed her out even more. She just sat and looked confused all the time; it was seriously heartbreaking and my eyes teared up every time I greeted her and she looked at me as if she’d never seen me before. I was especially scared because my cousins told me that this happened to their other grandma right before she passed away.

Finally, my mom took her to the doctor and then she had to be admitted into a hospital. The first time I went to see her, she still didn’t quite know who people were and I’m pretty sure she couldn’t remember anyone who wasn’t her child. I think she was slowly remembering faces but gradually she got better and better and the next time I went to visit her, she knew I was her granddaughter. I’m not totally sure what was wrong or what caused it, but from what I gather, I think she had a bruise in her brain. She’s been in the hospital for a few weeks, where they’ve been giving her physical therapy to help exercise her brain and such and just making sure she’s okay, and she finally gets to come home this Saturday!

I am thankful for the rest of my family as well, of course. I love them dearly and life would not be the same without them. We’re not close-knit and whatever like other families, but I know they will be there for me no matter what, because blood is thicker than water. I feel bad because it seems like I’ve spent so much energy and time putting friends first, only to realize that all I really need in life is right here at home. I know in the end that they still have my back no matter what stupid thing I’ve done or said, which I can’t really say about most people in my life. AND I am also thankful for the snowboarding boots my mommer bought for me!! I’m going to the slopes this year even if I have to hitchhike!!! Just kidding, I would never hitchhike. Are you nuts?

Last but not least, I am thankful that my apartment is so home-y and that I get to share it with my real hats. We haven’t had a lot of time to just relax and hang out or go on outings, but I feel really blessed to have met them and to be able to share my college experience with them. <3

PS I love and am thankful for Pushing Daisies, because there’s finally a show about a love that isn’t all about lust. :D!

I’ll post up a picture of our “costumes” soon. I’m kind of bummed I don’t get to go trick-or-treating anymore. I’m always a fan of free chocolate. Maybe I’ll just buy a bag for myself. It’ll be cheap within the next couple days. haha.

So some of my family members are coming from China tonight! I’m pretty excited for them because they’ve never been here and my cousin is going to stay behind after his parentals leave. I’m not sure if he’s living with us or my aunt. Probably with my aunt because we’re not really the close-knit family he’s probably used to. Or maybe he’d like that… Anyway, what I’m not excited about is them seeing my room in the state that it’s in. It is probably the worst it’s ever been, especially since I moved my bunk to school so now I only have one layer of bed to put things on and that’s not very space efficient. I think I might have to give up my room for him while his parental units are here, which really sucks because there really isn’t anywhere to put my things, so I’m thinking I have to move more of my stuff to school. I think I’ll bring Chance, my guitar. Maybe that’ll force me to learn more than one chord.

So on Monday I was pretty upset for several reasons and I just didn’t want to do anything but get frozen yogurt. I couldn’t get anyone to go with me because everyone was freakin’ busy, so I walked the scary streets of South Central Westwood alone for a WHOLE TWO BLOCKS. It’s really not that scary, but the homeless people and the crazies tend to be concentrated in that specific area, so I was a little scared, but it was so worth it to dodge them and throw my money down the drain for some Pinkberry. This is not a trendwhore-ish move, my friends. It is indulging in a healthy treat of yogurt and fruit, in order to cheer myself up. Wee!

Whenever people talk to me about relationship problems, like really depressing ones, I tend to hurt with them. It reminds me of what happened to me. It really, really hurt, but I try to play it down a lot now because it was so long ago and because I still feel ultra lame about it. haha. That’s right. Not just lame but ultra lame. It creeps up on me a lot and because I was feeling a little bummy, I decided to go back to old journal entries and relive the ups and downs a bit to figure out what the eff happened and I found this baby. The first paragraph is what I’m pointing out and you may choose to ignore the rest if you’d like, but I found that stuff kind of funny. What I wrote is still true. I’m a pretty upbeat person most times, because I hate being such a Debbie Downer and ruining everyone else’s fun. My method of getting better is just to keep the smiley faces going if I can and try really hard to take my mind off things and eventually enough time will pass for me to say that I really am okay. I do, of course, talk to a select few about those kinds of things when it gets bad, so don’t think I’m like a walking timebomb of crazy or something. It’s weird because, upon reading that old entry, I felt like the way I write now isn’t quite as happy sounding as it used to be, like I’m just kind of numb to everything now, possibly a little more angry and annoyed with the world, but maybe it’s just because that entry was from so long ago and I was trying really hard to keep the world from seeing how I was really doing. Or maybe I am a late bloomer and suffer from twenties angst instead of teenage angst.

I hate that I keep staying up until morning, by the way. I haven’t made much effort to normalize my sleeping patterns since I got back. There’s just been too much going on! I have to move a lot of stuff to my apartment today. I can’t wait to see my lovely apartmentmates! But I think I am returning home afterwards because the Moon Festival is on Tuesday and I’d like to be home to celebrate with family and repeatedly play and sing along with my current favorite song, Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin!!

I love having two New Year days a year. It’s like I get to start over twice! The Lunar New Year is more important to me, because I was raised to believe that and I still do. Celebrating the regular New Year just means making a resolution that I will probably forget about in a matter of days, or weeks, if it’s something sort of big. I celebrate it with friends at Nataly’s house. We play games (This year was Mahjong. Coincidentally, it was played on Chinese New Year too. Haha.) and we just hang. But Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year for those who aren’t Chinese) is something huge. I stay up all night the night before to freaking finish cleaning because I’m so messy and unorganized. I basically clean up a year’s mess once a year. Well, cleaning to me is more like stuffing all the stuff in the middle of the floor towards the sides of the room and in places where no one will see. As soon as the celebration period is over, everything slowly creeps back out towards the middle of the room and distributes pretty evenly all over the floor. I would like to change that this time because I’m trying to change my life and a clean room will help. Anyway, during the Chinese New Year period, I go with my mom to visit people–family friends, relatives, and whatnot. I eat a bunch of candies and snacks at their houses that I sometimes don’t really like but they’re right there and I want to be polite. It’s a time when people are nicer to each other and people are handing out moola left and right. ;P For a while, I really looked forward to the moola part, because I didn’t have a job and I was always broke because my parents don’t give me money all the time. I always felt bad asking because on the few occasions that I did, they always sort of glared at me and shelled out like a 10, which was supposed to last me for the next two months. Haha. I don’t blame them, though.. It’s not like I do a whole lot to deserve everything they give me. Anyway, I’m back to looking forward to the holiday for the traditions and the fun stuff. This year I cleaned until maybe 3am or so. We’re actually supposed to clean like a week before, but I’m a procrastinator, what can I say? It’s supposed to be like a “starting anew” kinda thing. Get rid of all the dust and clutter of the year before and start all overrr. My mom said that because I cleaned so late, I probably vacuumed up all my luck. haha. Dang. Anyway, I got up at 7am to go to the temple. It’s really nuts on New Year’s Day. They had this giant inflatable monk and there was a golden wishing tree and there was one area where they had all these stuffed animals that were the animals of the zodiac set up for display. My sister and I made wishes at the wishing tree because it looked so cool. You have to throw this ribbon attached to a coin up, but she’s so weaksauce that she couldn’t throw it up to get stuck in the tree. It fell to the ground like three times. hahaha. I threw mine into the tree on my first try but I wanted to get it onto a higher branch. Whatevers. We always go to this section with these 18 guys (I don’t know what they’re called in English) to throw coins in the fountain and at this bell thing. I totally hit it this year. haha. My mom is awesome, though, because she hit it on her second try. It took me quite a few pennies. Good thing we went prepared with ammo. So I guess regular New Year’s is for friends and Chinese New Year is for family, is what I’m trying to say. It’s weird because, like my friend Pheebo said, back in middle school and high school and stuff, our friends and social lives seem to mean the world to us, but nowadays family kinda comes first. They aren’t as judgmental and there isn’t really family drama. haha. I can tell them about people and I don’t have to worry about backstabbing. Like Emily said in a recent ep of Gilmore Girls, “Blood is thicker than water.” I don’t really understand how other people=water, but whatever. I think that’s why I don’t like to play Mahjong with other people anymore, though. I feel like it’s a family thing. Plus the last time I played, I didn’t want to play anymore because this little girl kept bugging us..

My grandpa was the one who taught me, or tried to, when I was little, but I liked building stuff with the tiles instead. My cousins and aunt retaught me at my grandma’s house. My grandma played too but she’s all talk. haha. When I went to China, we played all the time because of the power outages. They’re so intense there, I could hardly keep up. My uncle bought me this miniature set that I really wanted towards the end of the trip and it was oh so exciting. I opened it as soon as I got home and Alan and I taught Wendy, but after that, I barely ever touched it. They’re still super cute though. haha. Oh and not long after that day there was that whole scary Chinatown incident when Alan, Wendy and I went shopping for a set for him and narrowly escaped death. haha.

Oh yeah, my sister came to visit me on V-day, because I am a lonely old spinster. I wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea because I had a test and a quiz the next day, but I had tons o’ fun. We always do! We just hung out in Westwood for a couple hours or so. We went to Diddy Riese’s for coooookies. She bought me an ice cream sangwich. SO good. And she bought half a dozen cookies for herself. We ate in her car because it was cold outside and then we walked around some stores. It was just nice to hang because I don’t see her that much anymore with school and her working and all. We made fun of people too. That’s always fun. haha. We were supposed to watch Lost together but we wouldn’t have made it on time, so eh. Good ep though.

The next night I hung out with some Riverside peepo because they came to visit Jon for his birthday! It was so exciting. We ate and talked and hung out. It’s funny how the group always ends up separating into boys and girls. I love visitors!

If you didn’t notice, I now no longer have any webhost whatsoever. The last webspace account I had was a measly 5mb but now even that is gone and without warning, either. Life on the web is getting tough. I need space! Free things never lastttt. Wahhh. Remember when NetZero used to be free? haha. And everyone would use that code to get rid of the banner. Ah, good times. Alright it’s late. Bye.