i had a pretty marvelous day. i wasn't expecting anything at all, so when i received a multitude of surprises and presents and happy birthdays from across the entire world (jeff from japan, alex from india!!) it just made the entire day so much sweeter. at work, nate brought in a steaming pot of green chili and homemade tortillas; he told me to open up the foil pack and on top was an 's' tortilla, s for summer, how sweet! we also had a lot of pastries and starbucks coffee from greg, and though i was wholly unproductive for most of the night, i happened to be watching at 6:59 when adam, jenn, and craig all gave me a shout-out on air :').

i met claire and daren for a late breakfast at snooze, and was a little bit of a grumpy bitch when we first got there, complaining about people being late (ha! like i'm one to talk) and how i didn't want to share a gluten-free pancake but i guess i would - but by the time our server gave me a special cinnamon pancake (non-gluten free!) with a little blue candle on top and said she didn't want to make me something i didn't want to eat on my birthday, i was completely melted. claire gave me the sweetest, most hilarious card and her and daren paid for my breakfast. i was joking about wanting to get early-morning drunk but i managed not to. the cinnamon pancake, btw, was absolutely orgasmic. i've never had anything that amazing. i think i tuned out whatever the conversation was at the time because i was just happy chewing.

at home, i showered and mom brought up my package in the mail - all the way from korea, missha bb cream, yay! we talked for a while sitting on the landing of the stairs and it was really nice, and then i took a three hour nap - the most sleep i got the entire day, haha!

when i woke up, there was a hongbao by my bed from my mom ;___; and then we had a sichuan feast and i've never heard mom laugh that hard over stories about when she threw away my grandpa/grandma's hoarder things and their reactions. and then my sister surprised me with her present and a small cake she bought with her own allowance ;u; and then i fell asleep for 30 minutes on the couch during the movie and now i'm just happy.

so i'm 23 (or, like i've been telling people all day, 21 for the third time). securely in denial about my age - i think this is the year i'll start lying about it. but i'm #content and #happy and #allgoodthings, to say the least. :)

mood_ happy
music_ happy birthday, as serenaded by jenn and adam!
crave_ nothing

Labels: birthday, family, food, friends, good things, job, life, love

ughhhh, new semester. and my last semester - ever. when did i get so fucking old? (it's already getting tiring whenever i catch myself saying something to the extent of "this is the last january 25th i will ever have as a student." "this is the last syllabus and class introduction i will ever read or say." "this is the last batch of textbooks i will ever buy." jfc.) i don't even know where to start. which means, list.

classes, credits, graduation. i've figured out a way around spending tons of money on textbooks which i skim once and then attempt to sell back for only one-fifteenth - if that - of the price that i paid: don't buy them at all. obviously this doesn't always apply because certain classes guarantee a FAIL if you don't read and study it all, but. i cut corners where i can. (this is made up by the fact that i have to buy other shit now: dv tapes, external hds, "miracle ear" earpieces for on-the-air, audio recorders :||| i should've gone into magazine.) i'm taking a total of 12 credits (!!!) but it feels more like 18 thanks to bdj465, in which i got the most frequent rotation of the position i ABSOLUTELY DID NOT WANT. reporter. fuck you reporting, i hate you right now with no car and in the middle of winter. but after pouting and stewing about it for four days, i'm mostly over it and just have resigned myself to stressing out every monday night until halfway through february. talking to the other reporters stuck in the same situation has calmed me down, though, since nobody else seems to care that much. my fiction workshop is predictably filled with every single weird kid in syracuse who i've never seen till now, ever - but i like the professor. sociology of asian americans is basically a repeat of asian studies 101 = easy a = zero time spent + a lot of frustration at the kids who don't know the shit i do now. communications law is more fun than i thought it would be, mostly because dean rubin is one of the best professors i've come across in my entire educational experience. i'm not taking anything pass/fail though i could've, but after the records office told me i wouldn't be eligible for deans list if i did, i decided not to :|. i'm asian, hey. but! i am on track to graduation and will be graduating with a total of one (lol) credit more than i need. and i've never sunk below a b my entire college career (i'm asian, hey?) so COME MAY I AM GOING TO TUCK YOU UNDER MY BELT AND NEVER LOOK BACK, SYRACUSE. OVERALL GRADE: A

social life: ehhh. like i said before, most of my friends are abroad the entire year because they're on the five year track, so i still don't really have a lot of people here :( and my weekends and free time have definitely suffered because of that. i've come to the new conclusion that i'm less confident in myself when my friends aren't around; they didn't even have to be in the same classes for me to be more sure of myself when answering questions or just generally when i was being outspoken in class, but just knowing that they were there in the nearby vicinity and not halfway around the world was more comforting. i still talk too much in class but i'm not friendly about it nor am i approachable, and even i can tell. it bothers me a little that only now am i discovering that despite my path to ~independence~ and strong!womanhood, i still need people who like me to validate how i feel about myself to a certain extent... but i will never be that person who can be happy without friends. and right now i don't have a lot :| so..... i'm just reading a lot of novels on my to-read list from forever (which is good, i'm glad i'm finally doing that) and wasting more time with movies and new television shows and online and at the teahouse/library/starbucks. but it's only for another three months, and is broken up by my birthday weekend (see below) and spring break at home with everybody there and in time to celebrate st patricks day!!!! so it's all right. OVERALL GRADE: C-

birthday: subset of social life i guess but i'm too excited about this to put it under my sad social standing :(. one of the things my group of friends back in denver and i did too little of was take trips together! we always talked about scheduling cruises or roadtripping to california or going to vegas, but not until now have we finally set up a trip to boston for my birthday!!!!! EEEEEE!!!! alex and i have been there before (as well as alicia, but she doesn't really count since she goes to school there) but never with daren, never for anything special. so this time, even though boston - like all of the east coast - is snowed the fuck in which means it will be cold as shit and i will have perpetual woolen!hat hair and ugly coat and salt crust on my boots, i am so happy about it that i don't even care. weather conditions, bring it on!! we are also celebrating chinese new year so i'm going to haul them to chinatown. and i don't know what else alicia has scheduled, but she says she's packed full our weekend :DD we were supposed to go this weekend - so i would've been landing right now - but snow happened and daren's flight was canceled so we all pushed it back another weekend (also this way alex can most likely come too). i hope most of our plans revolves around food. and clubs! and alcohol. n_n february 4th to 7thhhhh and i'm missing monday class but DO I CARE, NO. OVERALL GRADE: A+

love life: another subset of social life i guess, but uhh nothing is going on. joe and i are friends at this point and for a variety of reasons i've already talked about, i'm not making a huge (read: any) effort so he's seemed to pick up on it and is just friendly joe instead of forward!flirty!joe. his roommate is nice... and i finally figured out his name is samuel, but he isn't exactly the tallest guy and while it's okay if i adapt to wearing flats, i have way too many heels i've broken in to not wear them. i put my feet through hell getting used to heels, they aren't switching back for a guy. this may be jumping the gun. like i told mom, i'm not interested in making boys a priority until everything else in my life is settled down and stable. this may mean i will be a 35 yr old single girl. i hope that doesn't happen, so maybe i will compromise and say if i'm 28 and have no prospects, i will actively start looking even if everything else in my life is fucked up. OVERALL GRADE: N/A

bills, job hunt, responsibilites: terrible LOL. i started out on fire bc the first thing i did when i got here on the 17th was clean the counters & fridge, sweep, and vacuum the entire apartment. .....and that's about it. there is a pile of dishes in the sink, my trash can is overflowing, and i'm running out of things to wear because it's all in the laundry. also one of my suitcases with most of my packed clothes from home is still sitting on the floor. i just paid the utilities bill for january; have not dropped off rent checks for december or january; and i don't have any contact solution (THOUGH I TRIED!!! stopped off at the student bookstore today to get toothpaste and face wash but they didn't have clear care :| and i can't use regular solution) and am trying to figure out how i can go without it until monday bc i'm too lazy to bundle up and slip&slide all the way down to cvs to get myself some. have not gone grocery shopping yet. have not networked a whole lot even though i should and all the contact information is just sitting on my desk. i think the fact that adam sucks at checking his email and never replied to my thank-you i sent him over the holidays discouraged me andddd i should schedule something with the cdc for therapy. oh my god. i'm making myself depressed. i'm a bad adult. OVERALL GRADE: D

health: i sleep at least around 6-7 hours per night during the weeknights i have class (m-thu), and thennn weekends around 10-12 hours, usually between 5 am to an indecent hour of the afternoon that i would rather not say. most days i end up eating one meal and a half. sometimes i eat two meals... but the hours are questionable because of my weekend sleep patterns and because i have class when lunch is usually happening for normal people. as an example that epitomizes this: last night (wednesday night) i slept from 4 to 11 am; went to class until 2; ordered a chai tea latte and a raspberry croissant at the library; another class till six; ate three slices of pizza and a huge cinnamon bun my roommate made; napped (i know, it's terrible to sleep right after you eat but i made the mistake of thinking i could stay awake curled up in bed with my book. wrong!) until 11; dressed somewhat decently before going across the hall to joe's apt where he and his roommate and a few other girls from the hallway were having a party in the dinky apartment; came back at 1:30 and proceeded to do nothing on the computer until 5 am when i ate another half of a cinnamon bun and then showered and now it's 8:30 am and i'm here. i'm in deep denial about having to grow up and operate on normal hours, clearly. as an addendum, the skin on my face is freaking out and getting really, really dry. some parts are peeling constantly, and it almost feels like ecsema except it's not irritating or painful save for when i put makeup (concealer) on the affected areas. i have no idea what to do, if it's a side effect of my keratosis pilaris, what :|. however, i'm not exactly surprised because it's happened pretty much every winter since high school, so i just slather on moisturizer and facial butter and mostly ignore it. i should probably schedule a full-body exam when i get back to denver for spring break though. OVERALL GRADE: D+

writing: better!!! i just need to stop forcing it and write when i feel like it. stop tinkering around with it so much and trying to mold myself into a style that is clearly not me. the professor in my fiction workshop told us about how he wanted to be like garcia marquez for the better part of a year once and everything he was writing was turning out like bad marquez... and then he got over it and figured out something that worked for him. you can admire other people's work, analyze and break it down and play around with it yourself and adapt some elements into your own writing, but if you never get over them and onto something else, then you won't ever be a real writer, he said. i think my growing pains are mostly over, despite the terrible flash fiction i wrote in class that i have no idea what it was about. dads and moms and peeling wallpaper and hongkong ghettos and mining factories??? what??? OVERALL GRADE: B+

don't really know what to say as an ending........ i'm a bad adult.

mood_ over it
music_ don't look now ft. keri hilson - far-east movement
crave_ chipotle

Labels: boys, food, friends, graduation, health, holidays, life, money, reading, school, stress, weekly sum-up, writing

i have five posts lined up but i'm going to write about last night first because, one, daren veronica fisher who i have known since we were eight years old graduated college, and two, i need to make myself stop spending money on shit that makes me sick regardless if i pace myself.

graduation.
i got mcdonalds in the car for lunch on the way to boulder, classy lady that i am. gemma, daren's family, and i watched daren walk at 2 pm! the ceremony was relatively short (around an hour) which was nice because her mom was worried about our dinner reservations at 4, and also i just hate sitting through fucking long ceremonies when all you want to get to is the part where you're involved (weddings, graduation, inductions, confirmations, baptisms, etc). the speaker was this lady from the now defunct rocky mountain news who started her own eyewitness news program, and i feel like she was going for something completely different in her speech than what she actually achieved, which was, it is hard to find a job right now and you all are competing with veteran journalists and if you don't love this career more than your SOUL then you better quit now and oh ps social media blah blah blah power. also she was really softspoken and slow - a clear marker of her print career as opposed to broadcast. anyway. afterwards they had a reception with cheese and fruit but no wine (???) and we gtfo after taking a few pictures. graduated!!!!


dinner @ brasserie ten ten.
such a classy restaurant. megan met us there to eat. gemma and i were like, this is basically like where we want to be able to spend our time all the time in the future when we're ~made successful women~. her parents paid for everything and told us to order whatever we wanted, plus it was happy hour, so even though it was an odd hour to be eating dinner, we had mignonette oysters (L O V E), salmon tartare, ham & cheese crepes, olive tapenade (love), a shitload of fries, mussels w italian sausage, escargot (i ate... none ha), artichoke & spinach ricotta, and we all got drinks. i got a vin d'orange martini which was listed as some sort of "light" white wine i don't remember and fresh oranges, but it tasted like straight alcohol and i was kind of happily buzzed after that haha. daren's bellinitini and gemma's cherry lemon-drop were delisshhhh, though. i started feeling really sleepy after we ate (dim candlelights, drink in my system, full and happy in a warm environment) which, for once, was fine because we had so much time before we usually go out, so i was like, i'm gonna take a 5 hr power nap when we get to the hotel and i felt like i was a college freshman again, ha.

hotel boulderado.
KEEPING UP THE CLASS. i guess the hotel was built in 1909 and since its opening they haven't really changed the layout or renovated the "look" at all, so it still is reminiscent of the early 1900's. there are bellhops everywhere, an elevator straight out of the titanic movie with an operator, floral wallpaper and sweeping oak staircases and dumbwaiters. there was a guest check-in list on display from the hotel's opening night right next to like a 25-foot christmas tree. we were upgraded (either bc of her parents or bc the receptionist decided to be nice when she heard about the graduation) from a full double to a queen suite, and our room was so, so amazing. a living room with l.e.d plasma screen tv, couches and glass tables and chaises and a full wet bar, then a hallway with a legitimate powder room and divided bathroom, then our bedroom with another television, two queen-size beds, more couches, and another door to a closet and the hallway. i feel like i shouldn't get this excited about a hotel room lol, but it was furnished again, like the early 1900's and it was amazing.

anyway, megan, daren, gemma and i somehow smooshed ourselves on one tiny couch with a quilt and watched the incredibles on hbo, then 17 again ha-ha-ha awkward times, and then gemma and i got hungry and ordered room service: steamed edamame and hot wings. the room service delivery boy was really cute and he made light conversation but i was so hungry i was more fixated on the wings and i think i left most of the talking to gemma except when i told him i disagreed with him about how to train your dragon being boring. at this point we'd moved to our bedroom and were lounging around on our beds being lazy as shit and halfway between sleep and wake, and it got to be around 10:30 when taryn and louise were going to meet up with us and i didn't want daren's parents to have wholly wasted their money on this lavish hotel room so we decided to get ready even though gemma said her stomach wasn't feeling great. i changed out of my dress into what i had packed that morning in the span of a minute, which was a sequin tank top and zip-up leggings. LOL. aka i was freezing all night.


half-fast subs.
we hailed a cab to this college bar that apparently had $7 pitchers and was a good place to pre-game, despite it being the trashiest frat-boy place i had ever been in, lol. the bartender (cashier? hardly a bartender) looked like tyler from vampire diaries, aka he was really cute and i was staring at him the entire time we were there. i decided not to get really drunk yet and ordered a 16oz. glass of "megarita" which daren said was great but i didn't particularly like (but finished anyways, plus whatever surplus daren apparently poured into my glass from her pitcher when i wasn't looking!). daren and megan both got INDIVIDUAL pitchers of megaritas and strong islands; gemma didn't get anything bc of her stomach, and we sat around watching the nuggets game for a while before we decided to go back to meet taryn and louise at our hotel again. while waiting for our cab, we stopped off at the gas station next door and for some reason i thought it'd be a good idea to eat between drinking so i got a slim jim (!?!) and proceeded to make gemma sicker.

catacombs bar.
gemma decided to stay in because she really wasn't feeling very well anymore, so after we met up with t & l, we went downstairs to the neighboring bar that was P A C K E D. i could barely even move to push myself through the crowd. we spent so much money at that bar, oh my god. i think i only got a vodka cranberry and a gin and tonic, but everybody else was taking shots, and getting beers, and etc etc etc. at one point i saw this guy brush past me who i thought i recognized, but i was like "...that can't be him......." until i followed him through a hallway and realized it was MATT FROM TAIWAN, OMG HOW WEIRD!!! i definitely have to hang out more with that kid before break is over.

after i rejoined the group who was now talking to two stranger boys whose names i never heard over the din of the bar, we decided to leave bc they were coming on really strong and it was creepy and we wanted to go check on gemma and make it to the club before everything shut down at 2 am (BOULDER IS LAAAAAME IN THAT RESPECT.) i probably should've been more sympathetic to gemma, but louise and i really wanted to go clubbing so we were in the hotel room for like 2 minutes before l & i were like LETS GOOOOOO.


around midnight club.
we got there at like, 1:10. at this point i had so many stamps on my hand that the bartender didn't believe that i'd had my hand stamped ~_~ but we got fuzzy navel shots and then went to go dance. i knew like aaalllll the songs, hay, and who would've though i'd ever be dancing to whip my hurr but i did :|. i was pretty smashed ok. there were a string of creepers we had to dance away from lol like every five minutes, it was so annoying, plus they closed it down in less than an hour, yet daren still managed to be found by this guy in one of her classes who i thought was her friend at first, but later recognized as the guy she's talked about before as a hxc drug dealer who she's tried to avoid for pretty much the whole year (matt). his tall ass friend sacha was also there. i guess (?) he was trying to make conversation but i couldn't hear him so i yelled my name and no i wasn't graduating into his ear before giving up talking. and we all danced for a while but eventually lost each other in the crowd. after daren, louise, and megan finished their beers, the place announced last call, and then we left.

new orleans creeps, 3ft tall indian creep, matt & sacha's house....
we met these three blond boys from new orleans not even two minutes after walking out of the bar, and at first they seemed really chill and one of them was shipping off to the marines today (we even took pictures with all of them 8|) so we were like YA OK LETS GO SOMEWHERE TO EAT OR STHNG... but none of us were srs, and then after louise heard the to-be-marine tell the other one WE'RE GETTING SOME SLUTS TONIGGGGHT i was like yea ok bye.

we were all really hungry so we tried finding someplace to eat, and while i was yelling about food we got flagged down by three other guys, one of whom was indian and named MANAB lol and was from canada, and i definitely ate half his quesedilla before i knew his name. he was hitting on me a lot :| and i was drunk so i was like YAAAAAA but i was just being friendly ~_~. one of his friends from long island was pretty cute, i think? but manab was taking up so much of my time and he was like fuckin short as hell and i was like gtfo. but we started walking and they kept following us, even when sacha found us again and was like I MADE TIRAMISU, DO YOU GUYS WANT SOME and we decided to walk all the way to his fuckin apartment which was like 12 blocks away, in the blizzarding snow. with manab and co. in tow even though his friends weren't that enthusiastic to follow four stranger girls and a stranger boy to his apt.

my fingers were freezing off and i was complaining lol, and i think at this point i realized sacha was ~interested~ in... w/e, getting in my leggings bc he took my hand and like put his arm around me and i was like OKAY I'LL LET YOU BC I'M DRUNK AND IDC AND I'M COLD. and then i would run off and wait for daren and he'd switch to louise, it was riiiidiiicullouusss this boy. i think he was cute (thought he was cute) but i don't have the greatest track record with being able to tell while inebriated thanks to my beer goggles being the fucking worst thing in the world. i've jumped on some boys i thought were cute who actually were not.

so at his apartment we ate the tiramisu which was really good, and then this pizza he made which was also rly good, and the entire time sacha was like telling us how he looooved cooking and matt brought him an apron and ... matt was like OH YA I CAN SALSA and i was like oh great, i cant, and he tried making me get up from my spot on the couch to teach me but i was like uh no, so he and sacha demonstrated instead 8|. also matt told me he got his tweed blazer from the women's section of some store and i was like okkkkk you are not gdragon, nor asian, idk how i feel about this information.

also sacha kept trying to hold my hand, or he'd have his arm thrown across my legs, etcetera, and he was asking me shit like what my bow ring meant and i was like ... it means nothing, wtf? and then he asked what the other ring meant (the silver one on my fourth finger) and i was like LOL I'M MARRIED. i left to wash my hands and when i got back megan and louise scooted over on the couch so i wouldn't have to sit next to him anymore, and later he like hovered over louise instead. she later said he asked her when she was leaving and if they could basically stay with each other and fuck. ummmmm.

our cab that daren called finally got here and when she was like CAB, TIME TO GO we all basically booked it the fuck out of there even though sacha pulled me into a hug i didn't want :|. we all ran down the stairs and out the door before i noticed i didn't have my camera. louise and i tried pressing random door numbers to see if anybody would let us in because we didn't know which room they were in but it didn't work so we just went back to our hotel so daren could call matt and ask him about my camera. they told us they could drop it off right then.... so we waited for them in the lobby.

they came in wheeling themselves on one of those luggage carts, and the night receptionist got hella pissed and was like that cost $3000 and he watched them until they left, even though they started shouting things at him o m g. also matt left a pic of him mooning us on my camera, lovely. when we finally got back to our room gemma said somebody had knocked on it earlier and we figured it was those two boys from catacombs, bc they were in the same hotel as us, and DAREN told them our room number and somebody agreed to shotgun beers in their tub later. i showered, we all passed out.

morning.
we got up at around 9:30 and checked out by 10. i was feeling fine when i got up, but the more i moved around and then after i was in the car, a huge ass hangover decided to kick in. i mean pounding headache, rampant nausea, dizziness, etc. it took us an hr to get back to denver, then we had to drop louise home, get gas, etc...... ugh i thought i was gonna throw up and i didn't even say bye to daren and gemma, i just got in my car and drove home, brushed my teeth, and passed out in bed until 4:30.

happy graduation.

mood_ dizzy
music_ HIGH HIGH - GD&TOP
crave_ crabcakes

Labels: alcohol, bad things, bars, boys, food, friends, good things, graduation, life

the only times i want to blog is when i'm closing in on only getting 5 hrs of sleep for the night or when i'm swamped with homework and grownedup shit. when i'm free for an afternoon, i end up marathoning antm or old seasons of project runway or wasting away at the teahouse/library/various states of unconsciousness. this is my life as we know it, lol. i better make something out of myself, and soon, before i permanently fuse with this ridiculousness.

school is school is school. it's getting to be that particular point in every semester where i reach a comfortable stretch of mind and just stop caring so much and start coasting along. i'm far along enough in my classes that i am familiar with the material, know what i'm doing, and have started ditching whenever i feel like i want a nap or some bubble tea instead. with far fewer friends this year, i'm surprised at how well i am adjusting to the concept and reality of being my own company a lot. this makes me sound kind of pathetic and lonely but i'm actually all right. it was a struggle the first few weeks because i'd come home and want somebody to just be available to go to starbucks with, or just unwind and talk about whatever for a few hours, and more often than not there wouldn't be anyone - but i think i like the idea of evolving into more independence. having friends is great and i miss them - my skype and tokbox and webcam are wearing out from talking to them - but i need to get used to doing things on my own. i think i was like that already to a degree, what with it practically coming with the contract of being the oldest child, but some things, like eating and grocery shopping and i don't know, going to resume seminars, i always did with somebody else. so this year, i'm largely forced to do most of it alllll byyy mahself and idk, it's not as bad as i thought it'd be. kind of wuliao and fantastically boring after a while but i could've quit it with half the dramatics i put everybody through when i'd whined about it.

getting back on the subject of classes themselves, a few things i am proud of myself for: i am on top of my time management this year. so far, at least. i don't know how and when and why this happened (maybe that i actually always keep icalender open?), but at least for the midterms this time around, i am a fuckin time management GOD. this is entirely lame, being so proud of myself for being able to do something i should've been apt at since grade school, but i have always been queen procrastinator. putting things off till the night before, writing papers an hour before class, half-assing assignments with the bs skillz i learned in ib ~ you name it, except blatant cheating, and i have done it just to get the end result of a decent grade. (how am i still an honors student? how the fuck was i nominated for one of five newhouse scholar positions this year!?) but anyway, for this weeks midterms (that just ended) i started studying ahead of time, i read mostly all the material, i took really great notes i kind of want to scan into the computer just to show everybody (:|), and come this week, i wasn't actually all that strained for study time. so, snaps for summer. never mind the fact that i put off buying my textbooks and didn't have a text for the anthro midterm this morning, aka i think i didn't do that hot.......... i'm just really glad this week is 95% over. three midterms and a video project, orz. also, i'm applying to things i normally would've just been too lazy for last year - getting nominated for newhouse scholar kind of kicked me in the ass in the good way! really i just felt like yea, i do deserve to be here, i am as good as all of you if i got nominated for this by the dean of the school, and i'm just volunteering for shit and filling out apps and THIS DOESN'T SOUND LIKE ANYTHING TO BE PROUD OF BUT I DON'T DO THIS STUFF OKAY.

on another note, tv/digital news reporting practicum is really stressing me out. every other week we switch off between, 1, actually going off campus, finding news worthy stories, shooting, reporting, and editing all of it to turn the entire video project in by midnight - and, 2, practicing our reporting in the live labs that are about as much fun and inviting as an interrogation room with bright lights and about six cameras trained on you (six cameras with the most unflattering lens EVER. not only do you gain 10 pounds, you are automatically washed out and looking like you're there for your mug shots. there's some footage i won't ever be putting on my resume tape). yesterday my partner for the week and i did a news story on high school safety - after the usual hair-tear-age at the lack of cooperative interviewee sources and shooting subjects, we finished shooting at around 4 pm. and i was in the edit suites until 9:45 pm. i would've stayed longer because i wasn't 100% satisfied with neither my script nor my video, but i still had anthropology to study for, and i hadn't eaten since noon, and i was literally falling asleep in those stupid edit suites. (and i still managed to forget to turn in my script.) i'm going to be so glad when this class is over. it's kind of one of those "let's thrust you straight into the situation and let you flounder around until you finally get a grip on it! we'll put you in worst case scenarios so anything in the real world will be so easy for you!" situations. i don't even know what to do with myself. i'm so stressed every single wednesday. the professional reporters i went out with this summer during my internship definitely had an easier job than we do right now.

i'm also so mad at myself with how much money i have spent this month. i hate hate hate hate hate it. the bulk of it has been on things for the apartment, groceries and meals, and rent - but i did go shopping at carousel last weekend and spent $160; bought another longchamp bag for class for $156; online shopped for a little bit and spent $57; i consistently get chai lattes and iced caramel frappes and lemon pound cakes at starbucks; and idk, i just feel really guilty about it. shopping is my addiction, i willingly admit it. HELLO MY NAME IS SUMMER AND I AM A SHOPAHOLIC. i will check myself into a psych ward after graduation and get some r&r time about it. this is why i need to marry a rich man, see? anyway, i have always spent a shit ton of money - but i guess the distinction this time is that i consistently feel terrible about it. with rent and textbooks and utilities and time warner cable and food and everything else we have to pay, i hate that i'm still so effing materialistic and i get food cravings a lot and i just have to have another coffee. growing up doesn't seem so much fun after all if i'm only 21 and the only thing i can think about are bills. anyway, it's the last day of september which provides a nice sort of close on the whole thing, so i'm going to call my parents, cry to mama about how bad i feel, and then stop spending so much on what i don't need. rent, utilities, cable, and food that costs less than my meal plans for the dining hall previous years (which, at least at night, is $16 per meal. WHAT A RIPOFF, even if our dining hall food is great). that's it for me. unless i find that perfect blazer i've been looking for. jk.

other than that: i had a brief three-day worry over rooming with kelly when she started getting pissy about random things like separating our dishes and foodstuffs and studying in the same room, but it's all good now after we talked and i realized she's just stressed out. the girl gets about 5 hrs of sleep on a good night and honestly, i had no idea how much work she did for vpa till i am witness to it every night. idek. i am consistently humbled when i complain to her about how much work i have and she makes a little comment like "ya, i have 102960984635 projects right now" and i feel like the biggest idiot, making mountains out of molehills. and about the dishes/foodstuffs shit, she said she's just anal about it. and she's a lot less stressed this year! supposedly! so anyway everything is fine and she's great and we're good.

also, i'm having some sort of weird recurring three-minute taiwanese drama with my two hallmates who live across the hall. i put most of it on my livejournal right here, but basically i don't know what's going on inside this guy joe's (or his roommate's, for now still named boy 2) head and what exactly he wants or if i'm just some sort of ego booster for him. whatever, i can't afford to care that much anyway, and i think he's a junior. why does this always happen to me? does my face scream cougar to you?

ACTUALLY LEAH SAYS I LOOK LIKE FEI FROM MISS A. SO HATERS TO THE LEFT BC FEI IS HOT.

(ALSO I TALKED TO STEFANO TONCHI, EDITOR IN CHIEF OF W MAGAZINE, TODAY TO SET UP AN INTERVIEW WITH HIM FOR MY W PROFILE FOR MAGCLASS. AND I'M STILL STARRRRSTRUCK (baby could you blow my heart up).

mood_ okay
music_ what you know about that - t.i.
crave_ christmas?

Labels: boys, figuring things out, food, friends, life, money, school, stress, weekly sum-up

my summer is fantastically and blandly amazing. i can't even tell you what i did yesterday, because all the days are bleeding into each other and i don't remember what i pulled out of the closet to wear (travesty!) much less what i did, who i saw. i've been working a lot, gaining a ton of new experiences and kissing asses and getting all the newsroom gossip and - surprising even myself - working really hard at it, kicking butt, and taking names.

i don't get to see my friends as often as i did, say, last summer because of our clashing work schedules, but when i do, it's mostly to stand in line at pinkberry, scream and keysmash on twitter over world cup results, ponder which movie to see, or look up cuisines we haven't tried on urban spoon. after being verbally molested by teenage boys at stellas coffeehaus, alex and i migrated over to the 24/hr starbucks by barnes and noble with the garden cafe (more realistically, a bunch of tables, spindly chairs, and ottomans set up on the street backlit by the lights shining through from b&n), where, after the sun goes down, it turns into a melting pot of different languages and people and age niches, and the crowd is so, so cool. i love it. mostly we sit with our coffees (read: chai tea lattes) and be pretentious and gossip and blab about world cup. and occasionally watch alex get hit on by weird middle eastern men who attempt to bribe her with chocolates that i end up eating.

we've been eating at dim sum on federal a lot, lollicup for bubble tea even more often where i have finally switched from jasmine milk tea to green apple black iced tea, and last week alex and i went to a persian restaurant on colorado blvd that got great reviews and NO WONDER, because the food was phenomenal. so fresh, and flavorful, and for the first time in a while did i not even think about adding sriracha lmao. we're definitely going back. (and we also bumped into connie and andrew; alex was like, "i feel like you know those people" and i look over and lol, it's condrew!).

i've also been to a slew of high school graduation parties as this time more of a chaperone than a ... partier... and it's frightening me a little how much i have grown. daren reminded me that college seniors are the people who we thought were old NOT when we were in middle school, NOT when we were in high school, but when we were COLLEGE FRESHMAN. yes. when i was in college at eighteen, i thought the twenty-one/two year olds were ancient shit. and now i am one. 8| (everybody is getting old though: teddy is getting married, ivo has his own apt, kevin and GRACE (!! jfc i hope she survives) are going off to college, daren is graduating college in december, mike moved to arkansas for his career, xiao is.... xiao)

i have figured out, though, that i am so old now that i'm getting lax even about holidays i used to give a shit about. maybe it's that you need a boyfriend in order to be excited over things like this, but for the fourth of july, i woke up not expecting a thing at all. it was nice, though: church; pho for lunch with the twins and carol and chris and ningning and daren actually came; shopping with daren where, predictably, i spent too much again (but $135 for seven items of clothing is a good thing i think, and oh GOD how i have missed shopping); dinner at home where the power went out two seconds after i turned on the tv and then it started pelting rain-then-hail-then-rain-again for the next five hours. after twiddling our thumbs in the dark for about three hours with a lot of whining on qin's part, dad took us driving to aurora mc just to see if they'd have fireworks despite the storm, and they did. we stayed in our car to watch them go off for about half an hour, and oh my gosh it was so amazing. i always am blown away by fireworks probably because it's something of which the mechanics i will never understand. anyway, i'm glad we went. the power was still off (and it was still raining, hard) when we returned home, and we lit all my candles that i haven't used since i've been away at college and talked on my parents' bed in the dark until the power finally came back on again at around 11:30 pm. we are so pathetic, though, whinging about the lack of electricity for a few hours and being absolutely bored to tears: we'd never survive in the stone age.

i think i'm in a summer rut, though. i've been thinking about things to do to change it up a little, and idk, maybe going to see a rapids game bc i love soccer and how bad can it be, or trying that ethiopian restaurant i found, or going to body world, or elitches since we haven't all been to an amusement park in ages. ALSO, you know, clubbing and barhopping (!!!!!!!) and sleeping over at claire's in our drunken hazes once she gets back from italy in two weeks. plus, much more of wandering around her fantastic old neighborhood and sushi den and india on pearl and such (+ her sobbing all over us about devin and her fucked up state of mind about boys, greaaaat i'm so excited).

aaand that's about it for now. i am sitting on my bed in a thong on a day that I Do Not Want to Be In A Thong. which means it's:
-laundry time. i also have to
-go grocery shopping,
-mail out two checks for rent,
-write some fic on my list,
-online shop at AE tomorrow before their supermegasale goes away,
-call my doctor to make an appointment,
-bag up the clothes i dont want to sell to plato's closet when i go up to boulder to see daren on wednesday, and
-finish designing a shirt to send to xiao for cxr.
wtf??? who am i? like, a... middle-aged..... teenager in a tutu and her mother's shoes. i guess this is growing up.

oh, three more random thoughts:

(one) world cup started out disappointing me with how badly all the supposedly good teams were doing, all the portugal games ended stressing me out wayyyyy too much because of how emotionally invested i now am in them despite it not being my dream team '06 anymore, and i am so crushed that portugal struck out so early. i am decidedly bitter towards the refs, c.ron for being a baby-daddy and not being more present, and most of all, carlos queiroz who as far as i am concerned can just go die in a horrible fucking fire for all the good he's done for the team, because he's done absolutely nothing except make terrible sub-ins and not let deco play his last tourney. fucking a-hole. he strengthened up the defense, fine, but big lot of help it did for v. spain. oh well. i have decided i am going to actively follow man.u again this next season, as well as pick up following real madrid even though my former feelings for that club were not so nice thanks to elias lol, and start saving up for wc2014.

(two) josh randomly texted me during portugal v. spain about the game, and then never texted back. i do not like being a disposable friend, as i have recently discovered that which i am. i thought our friendship was good enough to weather college and time apart but apparently he has no active desire to keep me in his life, or keep up his end of communication at all except on odd days where portugal plays a formidable opponent and he remembers me as the Girl He Used to Know Who Loves Portugal. or like the last time he texted me, when cuse was beaten by butler and he texted me about our fucking basketball team. that time i got him to say we'd actually catch up this summer, but nah, he's apparently forgotten that too. fucker. have a nice life.

(three) i am breaking out all over my face. this rarely happens. i don't know why. it's gross.

mood_ lazy
music_ take it slow - taeyang
crave_ persian foooood

Labels: angry ranting, body, boys, contemplation, food, friends, good things, holidays, internship, life, to-do list, weekly sum-up, world cup

i don't know if it's the 91 degree weather, the backyard barbeque with the patio doors thrown wide open, the sonic with the windows down at 10:30 pm, or the making plans about jetting to jamaica for a long weekend - but today was honestly one of those summer days you dream about happening, the ones that all kind of stick together in your memories and blend together in a haze of sunset, car rides, ice cream and facebook photo albums and the ones you look forward to when it's february and snowing outside your window and your whole entire life is covered in stress, school, and snow - the days that start perfect, end perfect, and everything in between is perfect, too.

nevermind the fact that i felt sticky and gross throughout most of it or that i didn't have perfect hair or that i started getting worn out like the old fart i'm becoming before even midnight hit. for once i remembered to charge my ipod for the car and my summer playlist created a nice underlying white noise at pho and laughing at mike when he accidentally mixed up incense with incest and asked carol if she burned an illegal brother and sister relationship at the stake instead of sticks of perfume; browsing for asian movies and hello kitty thrifts and lollipops at modern; eating freshly cut watermelon and watching the boys play smash brothers at teddy's house, and then playing uno for forever with pushups as punishments for the losers, and then drawing <3 teddy on ivo's arm as he slept; watching the lakers vs. celtics game and teddy and ivo's dad grilling absolutely delicious shrimp and chicken and steak outside on the backyard grill between muttering underneath his breath about the referees being biased; rushing to the theatre to watch sex and the city 2 (!!!!) with alex and giggling every three seconds because carrie, miranda, samantha, and charlotte are so, so us; meeting up with daren afterwards to go to sonic again and finally getting totally carried away about weekend plans to jamaica now that they're only $100 a ticket.

i don't even know which part was the best, and i can't describe the feeling. the day is nothing monumental, nothing out of the ordinary, and yet when i look back on the best days of my life ten, twenty, fifty years from now - maybe this day will stick to the next, maybe i won't remember all the details like how hard mike, xiao, ningning and i laughed with sharpies in our hands and a sleeping ivo at our mercy, maybe i won't even remember this day at all - but i'll remember the feeling. the intangible, indescribable feeling of a perfect summer day will stay with me - and this day, with friends, food, laughter, sunshine, and my ipod playing in the car, will definitely be a part of it.

mood_ content
music_ under the sheets - ellie goulding
crave_ nothing. :)

Labels: food, friends, good things, life, likes, love, music

[ w e e k l y roundup ]

sun, may 23_ church, pho with the boys, and midnight bubble tea at lollicup with daren and louise that turns into a food run after we figure out we're hungry. drive around university, decide to go to our failsafe at sonic, but sonic is apparently hosting some sort of weird trailer trash late night party spot so we go back to university and get gyros and stuffed grape leaves at jerusalem cafe at 11pm. and trade drunk stories and decide to come back when we're high since it's open 24/7. louise gets a baklava to go but eats it on accident. i almost drive us into a sidewalk. daren is a bad directions giver.
mon, may 24_ emo and mope around the whole day about not getting a callback about the internship for fox31news/cw2, finally decide to watch the lost season finale so i can take my mind off things, and after sending in a message to mike saying i can help out with cccjr, adam sechrist calls and tells me i got the internship. god is good. freak out with my family, mom cries, grandma cries, qq says i told you so, even my dad grins. go out to kingsland for dim sum with daren to celebrate. overstuff ourselves!
tue, may 25_ supposed to go shopping with daren, but wake up too late. uhmmm don't remember what else.
wed, may 26_ try writing, fail, go to lollicup for bubble tea and chipotle for dinner with qq instead. have some nice sister bonding time, long overdue.
thu, may 27_ alex comes over for an afternoon with sex and the city movie! surprised bc she has always been adamantly against the entire series, so it's nice she has decided to open up to them just in time to watch the second one with me. go to panera for some lunch, watch the movie, and spend way too long on textsfromlastnight.com. (303:) idk where my bra went. (1-303): welll u ran into the street took it off & yelled "im a free woman!" & then u threw it at some homeless guy
fri, may 28_ orientation at fox31/cw2! there are nine other interns besides me. get lunch at chipotle. worship practice for cccjr at church, spend most of the afternoon laughing at mike who can't hit a b note for how he loves. run home at 7:30 to shower, get dressed up, and go out to sushi den with daren and alex for dinner! sushi, mango martini (tampico and vodka! ew), shared green tea ice cream, and bubble tea at lollicup afterwards even though i was fucking full: $40.72. fuck my lief, whatever, IT WAS MAD GOOD.
sat, may 29_ drive up to estes for cccjr. qq ends up parroting every single opinion i have told her in the car to one of her friends while i pretend to be asleep. get lunch at subway, practice worship, hold service, meet my middle school girls small group, and pass out at midnight.

sun, may 30_ wake up feeling gross thanks to some bad food from last night, don't eat breakfast, counselor meeting at 7:45 @_@, service, small group, lunch, come back and find out there is wifi in our cabin and spend two hours online before taking another nap for an hour and a half. dinner, service, small group, campfire, and stay up playing stupid games like ninja and trump until 2 am.
mon, may 31_ skip breakfast, service, drive down from the mountains, chill out.
tue, jun 01_ first day at the internship! first meeting; watch adam make his 9 o'clock newscast, meet everybody including libby weaver and ron zappolo, go out with a reporter, shoot a story about how a little kid saved his grandma's life and the kid is ADORBS, come back, and adam lets me write it!!! go to the control room and watch my story air live at 9. ahh so exciting.
wed, jun 02_ PINKBERRY WITH MAMA AT 9 PM. wait in line for 45 minutes, original with kiwis, raspberries, and mango, and then get pulled over bc mom offers to drive and then forgets to turn on the headlights. but the officer was nice and we talked about pinkberry and he didn't give us a ticket even though mom forgot her license, BAHHHH.
thu, jun 03_ MAKE IT ON TELEVISION! everyday show cw2 at 10 o'clock, first introduced as summer the summer intern (ambush!), then as a participant in goorin brother's hat fashion show lolol with a headband decorated with a feather blair waldorf style. drive with catrina to natalie tysdal's (huge) house (mansion) in lone tree, watch her film quick tips, grab lunch with catrina at panera, and then mostly babysit her 13 month old son johnny while she shoots a package about a gyrospin bicycle that i get to write! (what do you do when you see a spaceman? PARK YOUR CAR, MAN! said in scottish accent)
fri, jun 04_ i think i wake up at like 4 lolol. mom makes me dumplings, then dinner at korea house with alex with kimchi jjigae nomnom, and then pinkberry (mango with blackberry, strawberry, and cheesecake bites WHICH WERE SOOO GOOD OMG), and then downtown to feel out the bar scene for the first time in denver. end up at a place on 15th and lawrence called mynt, free cover and free first drink for ladies. get a vodka cranberry and a mint mojito, and a free neon green shot because we sat at a table outside right next to the bouncer and a barback named shannon who gave them to us. gave shannon our numbers o.o but hopefully it'll lead to connections. slightly tipsy from the drinks. go home, pound out my olymfic in 5 hours. fist. pump.
sat, jun 05_ counselor meeting at cecd at 11:30, pho 79 for lunch with jackjack, jeff, jeremy, andrew, and kyle toasting each other with jalapenos, take a 3 hour nap on accident, and then go to connie's housewarming party even though it's kind of over. we talk for a while about a lot of things and i eat pizza and drink the pink lemonade i brought over and then mike says his farewell party has been moved to tomorrow for lunch, so i head back home.

feels like summer~

mood_ happy
music_ days and days - fantastic plastic machine
crave_ pinkberry: mango with cheesecake bites

Labels: alcohol, bars, faith, food, friends, good things, internship, life, weekly sum-up

1. dorian's pizzeria and deli is DELICIOUS. some of the best specialty pizzas i have ever tasted before, so next time you're hungry, summer, ORDER IN DORIAN'S. i might do it again tomorrow, in fact, if i dont feel like spending $16 for dinner in the dining hall and instead on takeout specialty pizza again. :d (alternatively, if you want wings, GET IT FROM KALZONIES. BETTER HOT WINGS THAN WINGS!)

2. my classmate video project is so ace. i'm actually surprised at myself at how well it turned out. (then again, i did have almost 30 minutes of footage to work with.) i kept thinking i'd be just mediocre in photo 205, but it turns out i'm actually pretty good at this shit. i actually enjoy editing and putting together video projects because apparently i'm a nerd. it's just the actual going on location with the fucking heavy as shit camera and tripod and finding creative angles to shoot from. aka i am SO NOT a photographer. but yes, my project is great. and if professor park trashes it on monday i will be crushed.

3. our bathroom ants are gone. wtf. i'm so confused, and i have no idea where they've gone. i'm not sure whether to be relieved or even more terrified, that either they've found a new place to inhabit or that they've just gotten smarter about hiding? in any case, i'm slowly being lulled into NOT being paranoid anymore every time i go into the bathroom, so... the ants better still not be in there anymore, or the next time i see one will be like experience #1 all over again: screaming, jumping back about 5 feet, and staring at it without knowing what to do with myself for the longest time.

4. craaaaaaving bubble tea. i should really just drag my ass to marshall street and get some from the teahouse, but it's far and i'm lazy.

5. it's gotten to that point in the semester where i've reached... what. i don't even know. peaceful-happy-complacent-optimism-elation... something. i'm kicking major ass in ALL my classes, school is over soon, the stuff i've been stressing out about recently (internships, video project, dropping chinese, transferring credits) has mostly been solved, and it's spring. which means sunlight, which means warm weather and longer days and brightness, which means my moods are automatically elevated. it's pathetic that i have this bad of seasonal depression but seriously, i think i was meant to be a bear in this life or the next or something by the amount of desire i express to just SLEEP when it's snowing and cold and dreary. i just want to burrow in my bed with a bucket of snacks and cry to myself with my pity party on the other end of the phone line or something, i dont know. when it's winter, i'm like me in those claritin clear commercials before the claritin clear - everything is grayer, and fuzzier, and you don't know what's going on. winter-summer (see! even that is an oxymoron!!!!) is not a happy nor pretty thing. this is another reason why being in taiwan for the rest of my life will be a good thing: THEY GET NO SNOW. anyways, yea. i'm just peacefully fine. karolina put things in perspective when she told me there are only 24 school days left. i am just confused at where the semester has gone, honestly, and if i really was half-hibernating during it because there is no other explanation as to how it just flew by without me even realizing it.

6. internal clock = still fucked over. it is now 9:34 am and i havent slept for the night. i'm glad i finished my video project today (yesterday? saturday) because i definitely will not wake up in time to make it there tomorrow (today. sunday) before it closes.

good night.

mood_ peaceful v
music_ monster - lady gaga
crave_ bubble teaaaa :( and ice cream

Labels: food, life, nostalgia, school, weekly sum-up