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

i was going to write a really long blog entry when i was home for spring break three weeks ago about how i love spring (break)! but obviously that failed, along with my mission to spring clean my entire room, which i have not cleaned out since i moved in in 8th grade. but this (click 01 & 02) is what i feel like when i'm home and it's march in denver and it's sunny and just starting to get warm again. happy, and unable to sit still, and obnoxiously cheerful because my seasonal depression is in fact, incredibly codependent on the sun. i went home for spring break hoping to stay home on our porch swing and be lazy with a glass of lemonade or whatever cliche, and instead i was out with friends for the majority of it. big surprise, especially when your break falls on saint patrick's day and it's the first year where all of your friends are finally 21.

-

(tangent in honor of march 17: obviously that night was ridiculous. i don't actually own anything green except a cotton t-shirt that i didn't bring home, so i wore all black instead and attempted to make up for it by wearing strings of green mardi gras beads, painting my nails a sparkly lime, and doing my eyeshadow in the same color. the previous day it had been 72 degrees and sunny - mar17 was windy, below 60, and freezing :|. alex, claire, daren and i ordered in pizza and then took the light rail downtown. we decided to wander around till we found somewhere with a lot of people, which ended up being SURPRISE, the tilted kilt. i really did not want to end up there because it is such a bar for broheims, but in retrospect, i am really, really glad we did.

after doing a tequila shot and then getting hit on by an obnoxious pushing-40 drunk at the bar who kept cajoling me for my zodiac sign and then KICKED ME in what he thought was a ~playful, flirty manner but was actually REALLY OBNOXIOUS and scuffed my pants, he bought us all rum and cokes and we got the fuck out of the bar and found a table at the back where daren and i ordered this fruity thing called purple haze that was really fucking delicious. we noticed these two older men who were having no luck finding anywhere to sit, so since there was only 4 of us at a 6-person table, we offered to share. i'd mentioned earlier that my goal of the night was to somehow get one of the huge green leprechaun hats that 60% of the people were wearing and this ended up being the entire catalyst for the rest of the night, so i pat myself on the back: first i spotted this guy across the room wearing the best hat ever - shiny green satin, an actual buckle in front - and then the two guys sitting at our table heard us and decided, along with my friends, to help me get that damn hat from the guy.

at this point we're all drunk already, so we're all being loud and obnoxious and saying ridiculous things. one of the guy's name's was biff (LOL. he wouldn't tell us his name for the longest time because of what it is. his friend's name was graham, they were both 37, and graham lied to us for a while by saying he was a dish washer when actually he's a graphic designer who sometimes comes to syracuse on business) and he was very charismatic and said I BET IF YOU FLASHED HIM HE'D GIVE IT TO YOU, but then i was like no that's ridiculous. the guy in the hat got up to use the restroom and biff was like, I'M GOING TO BARTER HIM FOR THE HAT and follows the guy into the bathroom LOL. graham said if he actually came out with the hat we should probably run because that meant the guy was probably unconscious on the bathroom floor, but we didn't actually think biff was going to come out with the hat on his head UNTIL HE DID, LIKE, 10 MINUTES LATER. funniest thing ever.

until he told us the guy wanted me to flash him if i wanted to keep the hat. biff also said the guy's friend, who was kind of attractive, had another hat that he would also give to us if all four of us flashed him. so usually i would say um, fuck no, but i was really drunk, and we decided to mull it over for a while while ordering two pizzas. biff was going back and forth between tables to bargain for us, but it eventually got to the point where alex, daren and i said we'd do it but claire was still saying NO THANKS. somehow biff managed to convince her because SOMEBODY TOLD US we wouldn't have to show boobs, just our bras - so we beckon the guy and his friend over, all four of us actually stand up and flash our bras holy crap i have never done anything like this before - and the guy snatches his fucking hat back because he was expecting boobs. sorry, pal, you are a loser with glasses and chin length hair who probably just saw more cleavage than you ever have in your life, take what you can get. SO DISAPPOINTING!

apparently there was a misunderstanding with what the terms and conditions were. anyway. the loser's attractive friend liked daren, but after that entire thing daren was basically of the opinion that he was a perv, so no go there. we told biff and graham we deserved something for our effort so they bought the entire table another round of tequila shots! that we did straight because the waitress was slow in bringing our limes and salt :|. at some point biff said he'd drop his pants if any of us got a hat for him, but we never thought it would happen until out of the blue alex goes to the bathroom and comes back with a VELVET LEPRECHAUN HAT WITH A FEATHER STICKING OUT OF IT. holy shitttt. all of us were literally like :OOO WHERE DID YOU GET THAT. she said she met a guy coming out of the bathroom and asked him where he got his hat, and he gave it to her in exchange for a kiss. LOL! i love single!alex. so, biff dropped his pants. i was laughing too hard at this point to really see much, but claire said he dropped everythinggg - boxers and all. ew. glad i didn't see that.

another minute and the guy who alex got the hat from came over and asked for her number, to which she said no thanksss, but offered to buy him a beer instead. daren and i for some reason also bought biff and graham car bombs before they left because they were driving to blackhawk (biff is a pro poker player?). after they left daren is on my left saying she is in love with graham and has texted biff about him, and on my right is the guy who gave alex the hat (ian) hitting on alex. and then daren texts saul!!! to come meet us because he is downtown too with his new gf, and when he comes in i run over to greet him and when i come back to our table all of the sudden there are like, 15 guys sitting with us now.

apparently they are all ian's friends, apparently they're all in the air force, and i am really drunk and don't actually give a shit until one of them gives me like 10 strands of green beads and starts to hit on me. he is wearing a slouchy beanie and a big sweater and tight pants, is really cute, (and a hipster,) and he keeps telling me how beautiful and cute i am!!! he says his last name is stuart but won't give me his first name because he says he wants to ~be mysterious~ lmfao idek, and i don't learn that it's brandon until about 10 minutes later. so, i'm not the smoothest operator when i'm drunk so i just keep laughing and telling him he's being extremely forward and how extremely drunk he also is. i can also play his game, so i tell him my last name, the first letter of my first name when i'm typing my number in his phone, anddd that's it. he asks me to go outside with him but i'm like buddy, i don't know you - i don't think so. apparently during all this alex has made friends with another airforce guy, anthony, and ian has moved on to hit on claire who apparently kissed him too!? but i missed all of this.

after this we leave with saul and gf heidi and walk down a couple blocks to pat's, another bar where daren knows the dj from her work. he plays all the songs we request and we danceeeeee until the bar closes :D. claire texts ian and alex and i tell her to tell ian to come to pat's and bring anthony and brandon! but ian tells claire that anthony is MARRIED and brandon has a girlfriend. greaaat. so forget them, saul buys us another round of tequila shots, and we just continue dancing. on our way back home claire gives me a piggy back, we witness another fight on the light rail jfc, and then we walk back to claire's house and i pass out on her couch.

and then brandon texts me the next day and i decide i don't really give a fuck about the girlfriend situation! we try to meet up but it does not work out and so we just continue talking via phone and it is good until...now, three weeks later and i am wholly disinterested in him because i'm flighty and he's too available and too interested and eager and just ugh. i guess i will have to cut him out of my life like an asshole.)

tangent ii: spring break itinerary //
fri, mar11 daren picks me up from airport, chipotle for lunch, relax at home :)
sat, mar12 koreahouse & lollicup w daren, free promotional shirt for sucker punch
sun, mar13 church, lunch at panera w ivo, boulder meeting w churchies, claire's house to chill w daren and claire (clap on! clap off!), jurassic park w qq
mon, mar14 gtop dvd!, relax
tue, mar15 give dad a full makeover to show mom how to do makeup, pinkberry w daren & claire
wed, mar16 haircut at great asian salon, feather search and ulta trip and chipotle for dinner and princess and the frog!! w daren & claire
thu, mar17 lol st patricks day at tilted kilt shenanigans (see above)
fri, mar18 lollicup w qq, dinner at thai restaurant w churchies, cupcakes at the shoppe in capitol hill w daren & alex & claire
sat, mar19 makeup consult by urban decay at ulta w daren & michelle, chipotle for lunch, shopping at cherry creek w daren & claire & michelle, dinner at maggianos w family

however, despite being out more than i stayed at home, i did somehow convince my entire family to go out to eat at maggiano's to celebrate both michelle and dad's birthdays. this was somewhat of a small victory for me, since my mom and my grandma rarely like going out to eat because they're such picky eaters. plus my dad got incredibly cranky about how late i made the reservation for (8:45) and for the first time in a while i saw him get unreasonably pouty with me! but it still ended up being a great night. the food was delicious, especially the mussels in white wine and the gnocchi in vodka sauce, and our server gave us free smore cakes after i told him about the birthdays. qq lovedd the food, michelle was happy because she wanted italian all along and didn't actually think she was going to get it, and dad ate over half the mussels i think, haha. mom kept commenting about the greatness of the restaurant and looked continually impressed by how... sophisticated? i guess is the right word... i was.

i guess i do feel more and more like a growned up every time i'm back home, now. i ordered a glass of moscato at dinner and the night before and the server almost forgot to ask to see my ID. when i was out with my older friends at a thai restaurant who used to treat me like a baby, their was no age rift in our conversation this time and it just felt... weird. in a good way. you know? we talked about the job market and alexandra wallace and i asked them to tone down the asian-to-white prejudice and we discussed thailand. i've traveled more than some of them. it's just weird, suddenly i've crossed over from 21 to "in my 20's" and i'm suddenly no longer a child. the next landmark age is, what? 25? 30? i drive my own car and i pay bills and grocery shop and clean house and i chaperone teenagers and i'm networking for a job - a career - after i graduate in about a month. A MONTH. i feel old 8(

i've kept this blog for over a year now. i plan to keep it after graduating because i don't think i will ever run out of stories to remember or inner turmoil to work out or lists to make, so it will definitely be interesting to see where life takes me when i look back on my life in another year. i wonder where i will be.

for now, i can't wait for may 15th, when i get to leave syracuse with it's 63 days of sunshine on average a year, and instead trade it for denver again, with it's 290~ days of sun. i haven't been in denver for septembers, for octobers, for februaries and aprils, since 2007. with my seasonal depression in mind, it means i'll be happy again for at least 290~ days of the year. it'll be a good change :).

mood_ anxious
music_ 2 am - anna nalick
crave_ chipotle

Labels: alcohol, bars, boys, family, friends, good things, graduation, holidays, life, love

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

i'm in love with this month. ready to blast annoying christmas music, string holiday lights and wreaths and send out cards, get drunk off too much eggnog at holiday parties dressed in sequined red and green and gold, glitter on my eyes. ready for how everyone is nicer, how the stores are brighter and warmer and crowded and filled with sales, ready for presents and traditions and waking up later and later on christmas day because we're getting older and need our sleep. ready for narnia. for the smell of gingerbread and snow to pervade everything else in the air, the snow piling up on the mailbox outside, cooking yams by the fireplace. to bring in the new year with too much jungle juice in my system and weed on the back porch and high school friends and countdowns from ten. ready to see daren graduate, to freak out over gd and top finally coming true, to hang silver tinsel in my car and watch christmas specials on abc. ready for 2011. ready forever ♥

Labels: good things, holidays, love, wish list

i am thankful for.

1. family, how much unconditional love i am shown*
2. friends, from the bars to the wish you were here's to the snarry talk
3. cross-country flights, only six hours from home at any given moment
4. good food, cars to get to them, memories made at them
5. retail therapy, retail guilt, responsibility
6. only twelve days until i am home again
7. livejournal, instant messenger, twitter. larger borders, more friends, more cross-continental connections than i ever thought i'd have, less loneliness, more laughter.

i need to.

1. be able to apologize when i am clearly in the wrong instead of just letting time resolve the conflict.
2. show more love and patience and selflessness to mom, dad, q2, grandma.
3. appreciate baby while she's still here.
4. read more. be inspired by more. appreciate my surroundings.
5. smile.
6. learn more responsibility for my money, which at this moment, is not mine.
7. eat healthier. sleep more.

i bought.

1. victoria's secret underwear, 5 pairs
2. victoria's secret every-wear bra, gray
3. ruffle-collar peacoat, light gray
3. wool zip-up with hood, dark gray
4. fur-lined hoodie, heather
5. nautical crew-neck long-sleeve tee, white & navy striped
6. cotton zip-up leggings, black
7. sterling silver crystal bow ring
8. black cuff with gold embedded stones
9. suede & lace shrunken sweatshirt, dark gray
10. gold-buttoned striped cardigan, brown & navy
11. two-finger horizontal studded cross ring, gold
12. three-finger bar ring, gold
13. sequined silk-screen graphic tank, light gray
14. metallic circle scarf, purple/silver

i did.

wed.NOV24/kbbq at korea house with daren, ear piercings with caibao, thanksgiving service at church with everyone
thu.NOV25/kung fu panda & lotr2 with q2 and dad, hot pot dinner with family, dessert w family friends, pretty woman with parents
fri.NOV26/outlet mall shopping with q2, eat at home, cherry creek mall shopping with daren, pho with daren ivo wayne mike (!!!) ken rachel tram etc etc, lollicup with daren

*=i found.
from Liping.Yu@uchsc.edu
to asianxchopsticks@gmail.com
date Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 9:23 AM
subject Hi

Hi Chen Chen,

I have mailed your Debit Card to you yesterday and please let me know as soon as you receive it. You need to use your IN# every time you use the card. But do not write down your IN# and put together with your card, this will be very dangerous.

Qin Qin and Mom wrote a letter to you and I will put into the mail today. Mom doesn’t know how to write the letter in English, so she spoke and Qin Qin wrote down for her. We all miss you so much.

I still encourage you to read the bible often and it will benefit to your whole life.

Love,
Dad

Labels: family, fashion, friends, good things, holidays, life, likes, love, money, weekly sum-up

patty hou is my biggest role model.

i have been vaguely ashamed of my chinese americanness for most of my life. i was not white enough to have the perfect blonde-haired, blue-eyed look that appeared on all the covers of the magazines i read and that all the boys described as their ideals, and at the same time, i was not asian enough to reject it completely in favor of completing my sentences in '-la' or '-wa' and write my statuses and emails in chinese. what, really, was being asian american? we were expected to be some sort of hybridization of the two cultures, western and eastern, but as to what exactly that meant, nobody knows. we wear ralph lauren polos and abercrombie henley tees, play lacrosse and have a white boyfriend: we're rejecting our asian heritage. we watch asian dramas and practice our mandarin slang and dangle obnoxious cell phone charms from our mobiles: we're fake. there is no perfect combination of two cultures that are in essence so different, especially when the asian minority is so polarized and self segregating in dominant american society, and conversely when people of our own skin color see us as foreign and on par with the White Man.

when i speak chinese, i have a slight americanized accent; when i'm in china and i go out with my family or my friends, i'm pointed out as being the american. shopkeepers don't speak to me if they can because they don't think i can understand them. family friends who meet me for the first time use simpler words, shorten their sentences and speak slower like i'm a child. in america, none of the teachers could pronounce my legal name during role call. the food i brought to lunch was weird and smelled funny, we didn't have traditional holidays at home, and i was sorted into esl because of how i looked even though my english pronunciation and grammar was perfect starting from kindergarten.

you live through that, and tell me how easy it is to feel comfortable in your own skin. through trial and error, i've come to the conclusion that i currently identify more with being white, but i am almost desperately on the path to discovering and wanting to be more "asian". i have never been so sure of my dream of wanting to live in asia, and to work in taiwan doing something native chinese and taiwanese haven't trusted me to do all my life: speak. my job will be to talk to people in mandarin, yes, in my slightly accented, slightly white-man sounding, mandarin. as somebody who has always been a dreamer, i have been overly confident with this plan for most of my college career, rattling it off to anybody who wants to know what i am planning to do with my life. but as graduation draws nearer, the gravity of the situation and how much left i actually have to learn means i am essentially panicking inside while trying not to show it. because, HOW THE FUCK AM I, i who may look chinese but personality-wise am at least fifty percent something else, GOING TO GET ANYWHERE NEAR THIS DREAM?

(because patty hou did it first.) southern california girl, usc-attending, taiwanese american patty hou came from america, started out as an anchor on the english channel, and now is so successful she has her own show (in mandarin) on azioTV as well as cohosts several other programs in taiwan. in every single article that mentions patty, the words that precede her name include titles like "american" and "whitewashed" and instead of rejecting it, she has decided to not give a flying fuck and embrace her double culture for all it's worth. she has the same exact american tinge to her voice when she speaks in mandarin, still slips up and speaks in english sometimes when she can't think of a word, and every mandarin sentence out of her mouth is simple, conversational, mandarin i already know and understand.

some critics say she is not a "real taiwanese" because of patty's perhaps deliberate efforts to stay partially american, but they're not the ones with perfect english who can utilize their bilingual abilities to interview international superstars like johnny depp, and antonio banderas, and scarlett johanssen, without having to call an interpreter and make the process stilted and awkward. they don't have another set of skills built in already where so many others struggle to get the basics down. they aren't able to understand and connect with both cultures and in the process understand so many other people and settings and situations that the average american - or taiwanese - would not.

patty hou attended usc, started out at the english-speaking channel in taiwan, and now is one of taiwan's most famous and successful hostesses and video-journalists. the journey she took to get to where she is, and the one i want, is uncannily alike, and she has become an inspiration and a motivation for me to know that as somebody who is neither really chinese nor american, i can still go and be where i want to be. i don't have to pretend to be ten thousand percent authentic asian to do so, nor do i have to be okay with asian people assuming that, because of the difference in how i dress or where i'm from or the slight lilt in my voice, that i am only american and merely observing their culture from the outside.

it's taken me almost twenty-two years to figure it out, but, look:

1. i'm both chinese and american.
2. i can embody either culture to the extent of how i want.
3. i can do this without feeling like i have to fit perfectly into a mold that society expects of me.
4. whatever i end up doing, wherever i end up and however i identify myself, you do not get to call me fake.

it's time to start embracing who i am, all sides of who i am, and love the incredible way i have experienced this world.

{ thanks, patty. :) }

mood_ thoughtful
music_ what ever happened? - the strokes
crave_ chipotle :d

Labels: contemplation, figuring things out, good things, just me and i, life, public declarations

in a writing rut. bored of syracuse, stressed, cold, and distant. i want to be home where there is fresher air and more golden leaves, less college. i need a change of scenery. good thanksgiving food & the beginning of it's looking a lot like christmastime, please. 到不了的都叫做远方；回不去的名字叫家乡。。。？

mood_ hopeful
music_ talking to the moon - bruno mars
crave_ home

Labels: family, good things, holidays, stupid post of pointless

and sometimes,

Labels: friends, good things, love

1. i had a spectacularly vivid dream last night that was crazy, non-stop, and the type of dream i would miss having if i ever stopped being able to. i don't remember half the details anymore, only that it involved my friends, living in a fab apartment in new york, eating out in garden cafes in the summer, and being crazy putting on makeup getting ready to go out - and then transformed into bunking with 2ne1 and seeing gd. at one point i was riding in the backseat of a car passed out next to him and dara, and i was curled up around him with gd looking like he did in beautiful hangover. it felt so real, hhahaha! and then i was with my family, and i think some of the boulder kids were in it too..... basically everybody i have ever known in my life (or hope to know) was in the dream and it was amazing and incredibleeeee.

2. i miss my best friends already, especially after last night's odd talk in the parking lot of starbucks as we tried prolonging the time we would all have before we would leave each other. it dragged on to period vag bags, skype dates, boys, uteruses falling out, an old biology teacher of ours, and plans for new york in the spring, and then we commenced to camerawhore. there is a hilarious picture of the three of them lined up in a row that i accidentally took while trying to figure out the self-timer on my camera; i am not in the frame except for the edge of my elbow, and claire, daren, and alex are making three variations (snort-inducing variations) on the same stereotypical fobby face i taught them. looking at it gives me a surge of affection, love, and general warm-fuzziness towards them and how did i EVER find three people who understand me this well? i can't wait to spend the rest of our lives together. soulmates. ♥

3. i stumbled upon an old christmas sock on my dresser a few hours ago and pulled out the gift inside - a tiny clay bibimbap cell phone charm, and a card with a panda on it from one of my old roommates in taiwan, karen (the nice twin). it suddenly occurred to me that she was so lovely to me the entire time i was her terrifying, partying, insomniac american roommate who didn't speak chinese to par and i wasn't nearly as nice back as i should have been. i never fully appreciated her efforts in taking me out to korean food the last night i was in taiwan, the taking to heart my love for bibimbap hence the choice of present, the willingness to look up times for gtv lineups for me and put up with my inane questions ranging from vocab to street locations and my being awake at 5 in the morning while she tried to sleep. i remember that there were slight traces of tears in her eyes when i left though we weren't by any means close. she still facebook messages me sometimes. there are probably dozens of people like her in my life who i don't see. i need to remember to send her something sweet in the mail.

4. one thing i didn't accomplish this summer which i still aspire to do: get at least one more ear piercing.

5. school: click here. (too lazy to copy/paste the entire thing.)

6. i cannot believe that once again, it is my last night in denver. insert obligatory how-i-will-miss-everybody-everything-i-hate-syracuse-classes-i-will-be-back-soon-and-i-will-make-changes-in-my-life-this-year post here, etc etc etc. despite the fab location of my apt and the closeness of my roommate and i, i have just never been that excited to leave home. call me a homebody or just oddly close to my parents and my family or way too comfortable in my denver niche or whatever, but denver is always home and will always be, and i hate going away. a large part of it is concern that my family will be sad after i am gone (this is in no means an effort to sound proud of or think largely of myself), so i am actually kind of glad that my cousin will be essentially replacing me for the next year: living in my room, eating with my family, filling up the space i leave open. despite my fussiness about people touching my stuff, i am glad she will be here so at least my mother will have somebody to talk to during the days she isn't at work.

i am entirely too lazy to make a whole post about leaving denver and starting a new school year, so let's not and pretend we did. however, i do want to say this:

i don't believe at all in the saying "once you leave home, you can never truly go back to it". instead, i would like to amend it to, at least in my own personal encounters: once you leave home, it will always be there waiting for you to step in and continue where you left off.

here's to november 19th when i pick up the threads again. :)

(also, i already miss summer time a lot. lazy days on the back deck swing, late nights at coffee, drinks downtown, parties and beer in boulder, flip flops, coffeehauses, sushi, spontaneous froyo, even work; i will see you 2011 may.)

mood_ meh, all right, all things considering
music_ silence
crave_ somebody to pack for me

Labels: contemplation, dreams, figuring things out, friends, good things, life, nostalgia, school, 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

1. i associate music with memories. setting, sensations, how i was feeling, who i was with, how the air smelt - a complete perceptive snapshot encapsulated within one song. at times it's an incomplete, a half-developed negative, but more often than not i can remember everything down to the last grain of sand. usually the memory has nothing to do with the song at all, but somehow the tunes and lyrics become a part of the memory itself - like the background white noise, the underlying hum that perfectly soundtracks better than words that feeling in the pit of my stomach when the memory happened.

sorting through my itunes library sometimes is like flipping through a photo album for me. paper-thin hymn by anberlin: sitting in the back of claire's car, watching my reflection in the window and the sun filter in from outside, on the way to daren's house for lunch after a perfect summer night in, even though i am a little tired and without makeup and hungry; made for loving you by blue: in the back of mike's car with lei as he drives us home from the twins' old house in golden, it is freezing, we are huddled underneath a huge down quilt in the back seat, and we are stuck in a traffic jam as he says 'hey, you guys should listen to this sappy song'; suga suga by baby bash: the entirety of eighth grade, including the Letter, walking home to alicia's house after school in a big crowd of people with pit stops at the park, and florida with hotel rooms and disneyworld and swimming suits and friends; gei wo duo yi dian by s.h.e: practicing and learning a dance up in estes with daren and alex and laughing until my stomach hurts and feeling grown-up even though it is dark outside and we are about to go skating at the rink and feel grown-up and be obnoxious.

i am bringing this up now because today, i found that it is almost virtually impossible for me to listen to koe o kikasete by big bang anymore because i associate the whole of the song with taiwan. and yes, the entire reason is because it came out when i was in taiwan and i immediately uploaded this to my ipod and listened to it everywhere - bus rides, walking back to the dorm after class, on the way to get bubble tea - but i honestly cannot even hear the opening chords anymore without a surge of ridiculous emotion. for some reason, i was making my way through my favorite music videos and decided to chance watching that one. three seconds in and i started remembering everything i miss and have missed much too much for half a year: taipei 101, and the five-star italian restaurant we splurged on with veal carpaccio and a cute waiter, danshui with the waterfront restaurant and the singer with the beautiful voice, dancing our hearts out at babe18 until we passed out and dropped out with our shoes in our hands and puking every third step, ditching class to go sit in line at gtv for a baifenbai taping and feeling completely starstruck around celebrities i have watched for so long, midnight food runs either at the vending machines with kimchi ramen or at the actual korean restaurant with kimchi and barbeque and then ximilu for dessert, getting lost on the bus on the way to sushi express in gongguan and feeling just generally, entirely, so, so, so happy.

i can't believe a simple, pretty song brings this all back. stupid, how nostalgic i am right now, at two fifty-four in the morning, with koe o kikasete on repeat because i guess i can't help myself.


2. i am becoming more and more materialistic by the day. expensive perfumes, chip and pepper jeans, designer accessories, brand makeup i can do without - all aren't a big deal to purchase anymore. where i used to cringe at anything above $30, multiply that times four and then perhaps i will hesitate a moment before putting it in my shopping cart. to tie up loose ends, though, i guess what i am saying is -


3. somebody stop me before i buy an impulse, one-way ticket to taipei.

mood_ nostalgic, contemplative
music_ koe o kikasete - big bang
crave_ taiwan in its entirety

Labels: contemplation, figuring things out, good things, life, love, wish list

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

I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT.

!!!!!!!!!! ohhh my god, when 4:30 came and passed i had basically resigned myself to the fact that no, summer, you were not going to get the internship this year after all and good on ya, too, for being cocky and self-assured and thinking it was going to be easy as fuckin pie to get. i didn't do anything on my checklist today to keep busy except watch lost, and that was only because, after staring at my phone since 11:30 am and becoming more and more pessimistic every minute that ticked by, i finally said fuck it, i SAID I WASN'T GOING TO CRY, i am going to stop obsessing and try and swallow away my nausea and make myself some lunch and WATCH LOST. sun/jin, charlie/claire, and sawyer/juliet finally sufficiently distracted me from my own feels-like-teenage-angst when mr.... i don't remember his name, last name begins with an s, called with "we'd like to offer you an internship this summer" and i flew out of my chair. i am convinced that God is behind all of this, ALL OF THIS, because only an hour before, mom had finally talked me into realizing how immature and selfish and half-ass about my faith i was being and i had manned up to my church responsibilities and sent mike and flo an apology email along with a confirmation about serving as counselor at cccjr. ONLY AN HOUR BEFORE MR. S CALLED AT 6:15 PM. they had all day, and yet he waited until i humbled myself - how do i go about living life believing God doesn't exist after i experience things like this?

for now, my hours are mondays and tuesdays, 1:30 - 10pm, and thursdays 4 - 9am. orientation is on friday at 11. honestly, give me the shittiest hours you can think of and i would take it. i went out to dimsum with daren to celebrate at kings land, and it was glakslgja so so so good. i am ridiculously glad that, at the end of the day, i don't have to play the game where i try and convince myself i didn't want it that much anyways and that there will be other, better opportunities and that this isn't as crucial a summer as everyone at newhouse says it is. i am still stunned at how this managed to somehow work out in the end - but i guess the bumpy ride to now taught me so much than if everything had been smooth from the start.

thank you so much to my mom for being there, to my dad for overpreparing me, to my grandma for telling me i look nice, to my sister for finally knocking some fucking sense into my thick head, to alex for shopping with me, to daren and louise for chilling and hanging and going to lollicup and jerusalem cafe at 11 o'clock at night (... i think i need to start doing weekly sum-ups), to ivoteddymikexiao for taking my mind off things and constantly putting up with my bs-ery, most importantly to God for letting me be a flake and a terrible listener and a constant runaway but still hearing me when i cried out to You and giving me this dream of mine. and to everyone, everyone, for constantly encouraging me - be it through twitter, text message, on the phone, in person - and for believing in me when i didn't anymore. thanks for making my summer, for better or worse, worthwhile. great, i sound like i'm giving an acceptance speech. anyway.

i have an internship.



"trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." proverbs 3:5-6

mood_ delirious, excited
music_ whatever you like - anya marina
crave_ chipotle / panera

Labels: faith, good things, internship, life